‘She’s a real actress,’ she whispered admiringly to Harry Hotham backstage. ‘Who’d have thought it?’
‘She has wonderful material to work with, my dear. Not to mention a great director.’
Laura kissed Harry on the cheek. He was an incorrigible flirt, but his heart was in the right place. She realized she had grown quite fond of him.
Almost before she was aware of it, the final scene came to an end and the curtain came down to riotous, wild applause from the audience. As the orchestra struck up ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’, the cast walked back on stage for their bows. First came the children, angelic and rosy-cheeked, flushed with their own success. Then the shepherds and kings. The innkeeper and King Herod, played by the local greengrocer and butcher respectively, got a huge cheer. And finally Gabe Baxter and Lisa James, hand in hand and smiling broadly, walked out for their encore.
In the wings, Laura was clapping and whooping as loudly as anyone when Lisa James suddenly marched over and dragged her out onto the stage.
‘Oh, no, really,’ Laura protested, aware of what a fright she must look. ‘No one wants to see me out there.’
‘Course they do. We all do,’ said Lisa.
And it was too late. With the spotlights blinding her, Laura stood awkwardly between Lisa and Gabe as the crowd roared their approval. Grabbing her hand, Gabe raised her arm, then pulled her down into a deep bow. As she bent over, the hairband holding back her tangled curls fell out, and Laura’s hair cascaded everywhere. To her utter horror, she realized too late that it wasn’t a hairband at all but a pair of knickers. She’d been in such a state this morning, she must have grabbed the closest thing to hand. She lunged forward to retrieve them but Gabe was too quick for her, snatching up the offending garment in a millisecond and stuffing it into his pocket. Then the curtain fell for a final time and the stage lights went down.
Hugging Laura warmly, Lisa James skipped off to join the rest of the cast in the dressing rooms, leaving Gabe and Laura alone.
‘Yours, I believe.’
He pulled the scrunched-up knickers out of his pocket with a grin.
Blushing furiously, Laura grabbed them from him. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘Of course it’s funny! It’s bloody hilarious.’
‘Do you think everybody saw?’
‘No! Not from that distance. It could have been anything, a scarf or a hankie or whatever. Anyway, who cares?’
I care, thought Laura. But she didn’t have the energy to fight about it.
‘We’re all going to The Fox to celebrate. Are you coming?’
Laura shook her head. ‘I’m wiped out. I’m going home to bed.’
‘Oh, come on, you can’t,’ said Gabe. ‘It’s Christmas Eve. You should be out having fun with all of us, not brooding at home on your own about arse-face.’
‘I won’t be brooding,’ Laura lied. ‘And I won’t be on my own. I’ve got Peggy.’
Gabe looked as if he were about to say something, then thought better of it.
‘Fine,’ he shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. You know where we are if you change your mind.’
* * *
Outside in the car park, Laura scraped the snow off her windscreen and was about to start the engine when a man tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Oh my goodness!’ she jumped. ‘You scared me.’
‘Sorry.’ The man smiled. He was tall and distinguished-looking, despite an ill-judged, holiday-themed sweater with a holly motif and a tiepin that flashed ‘Merry Christmas’ every few seconds. ‘I just wanted to say that was a terrific performance. I’ve been coming to the Nativities at Fittlescombe for the last fifteen years, but what you put together was in a league of its own.’
‘Oh. Thank you,’ said Laura, adding nervously, ‘It’s a good job you didn’t see it yesterday. It was a bloody disaster then, believe me. We all got covered in diarrhoea. Ha ha ha!’
For a moment the man looked startled, unsure what to say to this last unexpected revelation. Then he pulled out a business card and pressed it into Laura’s hand.
‘Yes, well, call me. I understand you’ve been working on a new script for television. I’d like to read it. And, er … Merry Christmas.’
The man walked off, rejoining a group of friends. Only when Laura got into her car, turned on the heating and the inside light, was she able to read the name on the card.
Graham Kenley
Gable Productions
With all the drama about Daniel and Tatiana Flint-Hamilton, and the stress of tonight’s production, she’d totally forgotten that Graham Kenley was going to be in the audience.
He liked my play!
He wants to read my script!
My script? What am I talking about? I haven’t got a script. She’d been so consumed with Daniel Smart and fantasies about their future together, Laura had barely typed a word in months.
Driving home far faster than she should have on the slippery, snowy back lanes, Laura burst into Briar Cottage, lit the fire, fed Peggy and sat straight down at her computer. All her earlier tiredness had gone. For the first time in months she felt alive creatively, energy and adrenaline coursing through her veins like an electrical current through a wire. She started to type, words flowing out of her like water from a spring. Once she started she couldn’t stop.
She was so engrossed that at first she didn’t hear the knocking. It was only Peggy’s barking that woke her from her reverie. Irritated, she got up and opened the door.
‘Hi.’
Daniel stood on the doorstep. He held a bunch of hand-tied red roses in one hand and a light-blue Tiffany box in the other. A light dusting of snow made his hair glisten. His teeth were perfectly white, and his handsome face flawless beneath the glow of the porch lamp.
‘Look, I know I’ve been an arse. A total arse. And I know I hurt you. But it’s you I want, not Tatiana. Can I come in?’
* * *
Five minutes later, sitting beside the fire listening to Daniel, Laura felt as if she were in a dream.
‘I’ll admit it,’ Daniel said. ‘I was blinded by her celebrity. And obviously, you know, she’s pretty.’
‘Obviously,’ said Laura.
‘But, as soon as I woke up this morning, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake.’
‘Why was that? Because she didn’t give you the money you needed to bail out your play?’
Even Daniel had the decency to look shamefaced.
‘Money was part of it. I’ve been under so much financial pressure, Laura, you don’t understand. But that wasn’t the only thing. I didn’t intend to fall in love with you. But I have, and last night made me realize that.’
‘Mmm hmm.’
Laura looked at Peggy, who made her feelings clear by farting loudly. I agree, thought Laura. Daniel went on.
‘Tati flew to Kitzbühel a few hours ago. She’s got some rich bloke out there, evidently. But I don’t care. All I want is to be with you, here. To have Christmas together like we planned.’
‘But Daniel,’ Laura said slowly. ‘You dumped me in front of three hundred people. You slept with someone else.’
‘To be fair,’ said Daniel, taking Laura’s hand in his. ‘We hadn’t made a commitment to each other. You said as much yourself last night. We weren’t exclusive. But I’d like to be now. If you knew how much you mean to me Laura …’
With a jerk, Laura withdrew her hand, as if she’d been stung by a bee.
‘I know it’ll take time.’
‘Daniel?’ Laura said softly.
‘Yes?’ Daniel’s handsome face lit up with hope and expectation.
‘Get out of my house. Get out before I throw you out and never, ever, come back.’
The loving look in his eyes soured like curdled milk. He stood up, slipping the Tiffany box back into his pocket and throwing the flowers down churlishly on the table.
‘Fine. If that’s how you feel.’
‘That’s how I feel.’
‘You’re maki
ng a big mistake you know, Laura,’ he said nastily. ‘It’s not as if you have so many other, better offers on the table.’
Laura sighed heavily. What had she ever, ever seen in him?
‘Fuck off, Daniel!’
With a slam of the door he did.
For a moment Laura stood rooted to the spot, listening to the roar of Daniel’s engine as he drove away. Then she laughed out loud. What a dickhead! What a total and utter dickhead. She contemplated going back to her writing, but the moment had been lost. On a whim, she put on her coat and boots and walked out into the snow.
She wasn’t sure where she was going. Not to The Fox. She wasn’t in the mood for socializing. She just felt a need to be outside and walking and free. Above her the dark night sky twinkled with stars, and the smoke smell from her own fire hung deliciously in the crisp air. The lane shone bright white with compacted snow, and all around the hedgerows and scenery were laden with thick frosting, a true winter wonderland. It wasn’t actually snowing at this moment and there was no wind, which made for a pleasant walk. After about a quarter of a mile, she was close enough to hear noise from the village and was on the point of turning back when a familiar voice startled her.
‘Laura? What are you doing out so late? Are you all right?’
Gabe Baxter loomed in front of her like a big, broad statue emerging suddenly from the darkness.
‘I’m fine. I just felt like a walk. I thought you were at the pub.’
‘I was for a bit.’ He came closer, so Laura could make out his features in the moonlight. The broad jaw, broken nose and mischievous eyes were the same as they’d always been, but something in Gabe’s expression was different. ‘But then I remembered I needed to do something.’
‘What did you need to do?’ asked Laura.
‘This.’
Grabbing her around the waist with both arms, he pulled her to him and kissed her, hard and strong and for a very, very long time. He smelled of whisky and stage make-up and his stubble felt rough and scratchy against Laura’s cheeks. This was nothing like kissing Daniel. Or John. Or anyone she’d ever kissed before. This was pure magic.
‘Come with me,’ he said, when at last they came up for air, grabbing her hand and leading her over to a stile at the side of the road. With his hands on her waist again, he lifted her over into the snowy field as if she weighed no more than a straw doll. Hidden from the road, but only a few feet back was a barn. Unbolting the door, Gabe pulled Laura inside.
‘Aren’t we trespassing?’ she giggled.
‘Nope. This is my land.’
Gabe pulled a torch out of his coat pocket and wedged it between two hay bales to give them a little light. Then, taking Laura’s face in his hands, he kissed her again, more gently this time. Removing his coat, he placed it over the straw. Then he rolled up his scarf as a pillow and, scooping Laura up into his arms like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold, laid her down gently on the makeshift bed.
Gazing up at him, stroking his face with her hands, Laura wondered how long she’d wanted him and realized that it had been a very, very long time.
‘So.’ She couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
‘So.’ Gabe smiled back, and slowly began to undress her.
In the distance, the bells of St Hilda’s began to ring out, summoning the villagers to midnight mass. The sound mingled with Gabe’s breathing as he pulled off his shirt and expertly unfastened Laura’s bra. She had never felt happier in her life.
It was going to be a very Merry Christmas indeed.
Copyright
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2012
Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2012
Cover images © Simon Wilkinson/Getty Images (woman); Shutterstock.com (illustrations)
Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Epub Edition © December 2012 ISBN: 9780007472543
Version: 2013-11-27
ONE SUMMER’S AFTERNOON
TILLY BAGSHAWE
Table of Contents
Title Page
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Close of Play
Copyright
MONDAY
‘All right, so let’s run through it again. Who’s going to open the batting with Will?’
The five men considered this all-important question in the beer garden of Fittlescombe’s prettiest pub, The Fox. This Saturday was the big match, an annual cricketing fixture between Fittlescombe and the neighbouring village of Brockhurst. Dating back more than a hundred and fifty years, the Swell Valley cricket match was older than the Ashes, and every bit as hotly contested. For the last six years in a row, shamingly, Brockhurst had trounced the home team. Indeed, almost since the match’s inception, Fittlescombe had been perceived as something of a gentlemanly shambles, gracious losers in the great tradition of affable, British sporting failures. The village had produced only two county players in the last century, in comparison with Brockhurst’s six, and no Test cricketers at all (Brockhurst could boast two). But this year the men of Fittlescombe were confident the tables would be turned, thanks in no small part to the return to their ranks of William Nutley, a brilliant batsman whom many locals considered good enough to play at county level. Will had grown up in the village, but his family had moved away a few years back, after old man Nutley lost the family fortune in a string of bad investments and was forced to sell his gorgeous Elizabethan manor house. But now, aged twenty-two, Will was back, living modestly in a rundown farmworker’s cottage, and playing better than ever.
‘It should be one of the older lads. Someone steadying, to calm the boy’s nerves.’
It was George Blythe, the local carpenter and Fittlescombe’s captain, who made this observation, but it was greeted by universal nods and murmurs of assent from his table mates – namely Dylan Pritchard Jones, the handsome young art teacher at St Hilda’s School in the village; Gabe Baxter, a local farmer and handy fielder with a first-class bowling arm; Timothy Wright, a retired stockbroker who lived in the village and who in his youth had been a star bowler at Eton; and Frank Bannister, the sweet-natured church organist, who was frankly an appalling cricketer but was far too nice a person to be kicked off the team. The Fittlescombe XI ranged in age from fourteen (Seb Harwich was coming home from school for the match) to sixty-five-year-old Timothy, and the levels of ability were equally diverse. Not all of the players had been able to make it to tonight’s get-together at The Fox. But all had agreed that the five men present would settle on a batting and bowling order, as well as arranging a schedule for the week’s practices. The key question at issue, however, was whom to pair with Will Nutley. Everybody knew that, while Will was their great white hope, he was also prone to terrible nerves. Especially when playing in front of his beautiful ex-girlfriend, Emma Harwich, who was
sure to be there on Saturday supporting her brother. One silly mistake, one lapse in concentration on Will’s part, and all Fittlescombe’s long-cherished hopes would be dashed. The choice of batting partner was crucial.
‘I vote Tim,’ said Gabe Baxter. Blond and stocky, like a handsome pit-bull terrier, Gabe was considered the sexiest player of the tournament, closely followed by the good-looking but terribly vain Dylan Pritchard Jones. ‘You’re our safest pair of hands. And you’ve known Will forever.’
Timothy Wright smiled ruefully. Bald and paunchy, with a permanently red nose and cheeks latticed with broken red veins after a lifetime of hard drinking, Timothy was not one of Fittlescombe’s heart-throbs. ‘I’m flattered, dear boy, but an opening batsman I am not. I’m afraid I’m very much a one-trick pony.’
‘Lionel, then?’ said George Blythe, the thin and wiry village captain.
Lionel Green, owner of Green’s Books on the high street, was the next oldest player after Timothy at fifty-seven, and a competent, if not spectacular, batsman.
‘I think he’d be a better bet,’ said Timothy. ‘He should steady the lad’s nerves. Although the very best thing would be to think of a way to stop the Harwich girl from coming at all.’
‘I doubt you’ll succeed at that,’ Dylan Pritchard Jones said archly. At thirty-two years old, with a thick mop of curly hair and twinkly, lapis-blue eyes, Dylan was considered almost as much of a catch as Gabe Baxter; although, like Gabe, he was spoken for, married to the patient and lovely Maisie. ‘Emma Harwich could give Tatiana Flint-Hamilton a run for her money when it comes to loving the cameras. There’s bound to be a ton of press here on Saturday. She won’t miss a chance to get her pretty little face in the papers.’
Local teen Emma Harwich had been signed to a London modelling agency last year, since when her career had taken off exponentially. A few months ago Emma was named as the new face of Burberry, and was rapidly eclipsing Tatiana Flint-Hamilton as Fittlescombe’s most famous beauty. Emma and Will Nutley had briefly dated a few years ago. But that was back when Emma was an unknown, and Will had expected to inherit a not-so-small fortune.
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