‘A Mr Bogdanovich and a Mr O’Hara have just arrived from the station,’ she says. ‘I don’t know if they’re wedding guests, or some of Libby’s staff …?’
‘They’re guests,’ I say. ‘At least, Bogdan is …’
I’m not entirely sure what Mr O’Hara (I mean, Dillon) is doing, showing up with Bogdan like this. It’s not like he’s been banned from the wedding for being an ex, or anything – even though Lillian, Joel’s ex-wife, is obviously not attending for that very reason, despite the fact she’s flying into London tonight with Julia, who’s going to be my flower girl – but given that we’re keeping it all so small, there just wasn’t room for him on the guest list. Not to mention the fact that I barely see or hear from him from one month to the next … and then of course, like the proverbial bad penny, here he is showing up unannounced right before my wedding.
‘You’d better go, then,’ Joel says, rather brusquely. He turns back to his iPad. ‘I’ll be in here if you need me.’
‘But don’t you want to come and say hello—?’
‘I’m busy.’
Great. So now he’s sulking, though whether it’s about Dillon’s unexpected arrival (which would be odd, because Joel’s never proved himself to be the jealous type before) or my reaction to the brand-new job he’s just unilaterally given me with his Foundation, I don’t know.
And I can’t ask, because Rachael/Rebecca is still here, and is now heading over to Joel, in fact, with her own ever-present iPad aloft, asking him if he’s got five minutes to talk over the itinerary for Geneva, whatever the hell that is.
So I just make a bit of a passive-aggressive show of closing the door rather sharply behind me, swallowing the discomfort that’s crept up inside me, and head out on to the driveway to greet Bogdan and Dillon.
They’re getting out of the black Land Rover that one of the (myriad) groundsmen uses to do pick-ups from the station. My heart swells with excitement, and I actually have to choke back a sudden, out-of-the-blue sob as I hurry towards them. I mean, I only saw Bogdan two days ago, for crying out loud, when he accompanied me to the final fitting of my dress. I’ve no idea why it should feel like it’s been more like two lifetimes.
‘Hey, there, sweetheart.’ Dillon grabs me first, and puts both arms around me for a huge, rib-crushing hug. ‘How’s this for a surprise?’
‘You didn’t say you were coming.’
‘That’s the definition of a surprise, Fire Girl. I was hanging out with Bogdan yesterday, and he mentioned he’d be heading down here today, so I thought I’d pop down with him before it all gets really serious tomorrow.’ Dillon grins down at me. He looks, thankfully, about a million times better than he did before he went back to rehab six months ago: leaner and fitter and less saggy beneath the eyes. ‘You look skinny.’
‘Is that a compliment or a veiled criticism?’
‘I don’t know yet.’ He scrutinizes me more carefully. ‘That depends whether you’ve lost weight to fit into some stunning wedding dress or because Mr Hotshot Billionaire wanted you to.’
‘Dillon! For Christ’s sake!’ I glare at him. ‘Joel’s right inside! Can you try and be a bit less rude, do you think?’
‘And am being able to inform you that Libby is shedding the pounds to be looking good in wedding dress,’ Bogdan adds, walking round from the other side of the Range Rover. ‘Am telling you, Dillon, you are never seeing anything so stunning as this dress. Is the Jenny Packham, is the bias-cut, which obviously is already helping Libby out in the department of the figure—’
‘She doesn’t need any help in the department of the figure,’ Dillon says, loyally (and inaccurately). ‘But I bet she does look stunning in it.’
‘Am helping her to be choosing it,’ Bogdan says. ‘If she is being left to own devices, she is no doubt walking down aisle in grey hoodie and tracksuit bottoms.’
‘Thanks, Bogdan.’
‘You are being most welcome. Now, can you be telling me where am to be putting bags …?’ He stops, as he suddenly clocks the house in front of us.
Well, house is putting it a bit mildly.
Aldingbourne Abbey, the house that I thought (that Joel led me to believe) was going to be just some simple, even tumbledown, country bolthole, is in fact almost as impressive as Joel’s Holland Park mansion. Except that, unlike the Holland Park mansion, Aldingbourne is actually gorgeous. It’s late Georgian (with Edwardian additions, as either Rachael or Rebecca told me when I first came here four months ago; I think she has her eye on writing the official history of the house, after all the endless information she gave me) and built from pale grey stone. It has fourteen bedrooms within the main house itself, and about a dozen others scattered in the little cottages around the rest of the estate. It has sixteen acres of formal landscaped grounds, forty acres of ‘parkland’ and its own wood. It has a lake, big enough to fish in, if you happened to be so inclined. It has incredible views over the South Downs.
It is, truly, exquisite.
‘Well,’ says Bogdan, after a long moment, during which he and Dillon gaze up at the house from the huge, sweeping driveway, ‘am guessing that we are being in the Kansas no more.’
‘Too flaming right,’ says Dillon. He sounds edgy, deliberately unimpressed. ‘So this is the house of which you are to be … whatsit … chatelaine?’
‘Oh, I don’t think there’s any need for words like that,’ I say.
‘All right, then. Mistress. Of all you survey.’
‘Or those,’ I say, fixing him with a look. (Though he is, much as I hate to admit it, closer to the truth than I’ll ever admit to him. Another discussion that Joel and I have had quite recently – another somewhat heated discussion, in fact – was around Aldingbourne, and how he’d really like me to oversee the plans for some renovation work starting next spring. Along with Nicaraguan politics and a passing knowledge of international trade agreements, I’m expected, apparently, to be confident about taking charge of the plan to repair some damaged masonry and fit out a brand-new professional-level kitchen in a Grade I-listed Georgian mansion. I know Joel was only being nice, in his way, because he wants this place to feel like home, and he wants me to feel I can put my own stamp on it, but still. I’ve never so much as successfully renovated a crappy one-bedroom flat, so this is a scary prospect.) ‘In fact, if you just came here to be aggressive—’
‘Nothing of the sort. I’m really happy for you, sweetheart. As long as you’re happy.’
‘Very.’ I detach his arm from over my shoulder. ‘Anyway, let’s get you settled, Bogdan, and then we can maybe all have a bit of a walk or something … I think you’ve probably been allocated a room in one of the cottages, but I’ll just check that with Rachael … or, er, Rebecca …’
‘Is no problem. But are you minding if am just popping into main house for one moment, Libby? Am just wanting to be checking something.’
‘Oh … er … no, I suppose that’s fine. But what is it you want to …’
Too late, because he’s already set off in search of whatever it is he wants to ‘check’.
I’m about to head off at some speed after him – because honestly, he’s a liability, wandering around the place without a clue where he’s going – when Dillon stops me.
‘Mind if I have a smoke out here?’
‘Oh, Dillon. You’re not smoking again?’
‘Well, it’s that or wake up in the morning and do a line of coke and knock back three shots of vodka before I even hit the shower, so—’
‘All right, all right. Have a bloody cigarette.’
‘Thanks. It’ll kill me a bit less quickly than the booze and the drugs.’
‘That’s heartening to hear.’
He takes a cigarette from his pocket, lights it and then leans against the Land Rover, exhaling.
‘So. You’re actually doing it.’
‘I’m actually doing it.’
‘Marriage. To this Joel character.’
‘Yes, Dillon. Marriage. To this Joe
l character. Whom I happen to be in love with, by the way. Just in case you were about to mention … anything else.’
‘Hey, I wasn’t about to mention anything else. Or anyone.’
‘Good.’ I watch him blowing out a cloud of smoke into the chilly air for a moment, and then, even though I’m not planning to say anything I go on, ‘Olly’s getting married himself, actually.’
‘Yeah, I remember you said, when you picked me up from rehab back in July. So that’s still going ahead, then, yeah?’
‘Of course it is! I mean, they haven’t set a date or anything yet, as far as I know … I haven’t had much chance to see Olly in the last few months, obviously. He goes up and down to Glasgow a lot, and then there’s work … In fact, I think the last time I actually saw him was just before we got engaged.’
‘Right … how did that even happen, by the way? I mean, no judgement, but isn’t it quite quick?’
‘It’s on the quick side, Dillon, yes. But you know: when you know, you know.’
‘You’ve just used the words you know three times in the same sentence.’
I ignore this, and instead rub, gently, the tip of my thumb against my engagement ring. (It’s a very beautiful, incredibly tasteful – obviously – brilliant-cut diamond on a white-gold band; Joel had it cut and designed in London but the stone is from one of his foundation projects in Central Africa.)
‘And as for how the engagement actually happened,’ I go on, ‘it was right here, in fact.’
‘On the driveway?’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘Romantic.’
‘By the bloody lake!’ I snap at him. ‘At sunset. So yes, it was pretty fucking romantic, as it happens. And if you’ve only come here to have a good old snark …’
‘Is that what it looks like?’
‘Yes, Dillon, that’s what it looks like. And, to be fair, it’s not entirely unreasonable of me to assume that when, let’s face it, you have form for this.’
‘Oh, you mean me slagging off Olly because I was jealous of him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that was different.’
‘Was it, now?’
‘Yeah. I’m not jealous of Joel. I just think you’re making a massive mistake marrying him.’
‘Thank you, Dillon,’ I say, icily. ‘If I didn’t have enough to deal with already, with my mum flipping out about my dad being invited, and Cass pretty much wanting to perform a lap dance for the best man, and Joel going into a strop because he thinks I should start running his foundation the moment we’re married—’
‘You know he got me my job on Kings and Legends?’
I stop. ‘What?’
‘Joel. Your fiancé. He got me the job on Kings and Legends. The show I’m filming over in Vancouver.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I only found out about it a couple of weeks ago. I was chatting to the first AD – not getting involved with any more AD’s girlfriends these days, I hasten to add – and he let slip something about the casting director getting a call from the head of the production company about me when the role came up … It was a bit odd, so I went and looked into the production company. Stellar Media. And their main investor is Jansen-Perreira Limited.’
My head is spinning a bit here, with all the links and associations and, I have to be honest, the slight air of Conspiracy Theory that Dillon is exuding about the whole thing.
‘Sorry, Dillon, you’re saying that Joel must have … what? Called the head of the production company and told him to give you a job on their new show?’
‘Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.’
‘And even if that’s true … is there something so horribly sinister about that?’
‘Well, I don’t know. You tell me.’
‘I’d love to, Dillon, but … honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘All right. I’ll say it.’ His dark eyes fix themselves on to mine. ‘I think he got me out of the way.’
I don’t say anything for a moment. Then I say, in a quiet but firm voice, ‘Dillon. As I so often say to my mother. Not everything is about you, you know.’
‘That’s not the way I mean it!’ He looks frustrated, and takes a deep drag on his cigarette. ‘It’s the timing of it, Lib. He met me, in a bit of a state, outside your flat. Less than forty-eight hours later, my agent gets this totally out-of-the-blue call from the casting director saying she wants me to come to Canada to audition. This is a casting director who hates my guts, by the way, because I once kept her waiting two hours to audition me for another show after I missed my flight home from Ibiza—’
‘Oh, for the love of God!’ I actually shout. ‘And you wonder why anybody might think, out of the goodness of their heart, that maybe giving you a bit of a helping hand might be an act of kindness? As opposed to the Crime of the Century …’
I stop talking, because a white van is suddenly pulling up on to the sweep of the gravelled driveway.
It’s a particularly scruffy-looking white van, billowing a cloud of pewter-coloured smoke out of its exhaust pipe, which is probably why the front door of the house suddenly opens wide and – where the hell do they come from? – Esti and another of her lethal-looking security colleagues hurry out.
The van stops, a short distance away from the black Land Rover, and the passenger door opens, letting out a dark-haired man in an Adidas tracksuit and a faintly sinister pair of sunglasses.
I have to be honest, the oddness is obviously even getting to cynical Dillon, because he puts his arm over my shoulders again and draws me slightly backwards, behind the Land Rover, as Esti marches up to them.
‘Can I help you?’ she asks, in a tone of voice that suggests she’s merely a split second away from hurling him to the ground and cutting off his air supply with one swift Krav Maga move.
‘I am here for Bogdan.’
‘Bogdan?’
‘Yes. Bogdan, Son of Bogdan. He is arranging for us to make this delivery—’
‘Delivery of?’ Esti snaps, a little closer to that hurling manoeuvre.
‘Of sofa.’
‘Sofa?’
‘Yes. Sofa. From Chester.’
Bogdan himself now appears from the house, with Joel – looking utterly bewildered – at a bit of a distance behind him. He heads down the steps and starts speaking in rapid-fire Moldovan to the Adidas guy, before the latter lumbers round to the rear of the van and starts to open the back doors.
‘What’s going on out here?’ Joel asks, heading down the steps himself. ‘Bogdan was just in the sitting room … er … measuring up …’
I can already see what Adidas guy is starting, with the help of another Moldovan who’s just got out from the driver’s side, to pull out of the back of the dodgy old van.
It’s the Chesterfield.
‘Is wedding present to you, Libby,’ Bogdan says, his face breaking into a small, slightly nervous smile for pretty much the first time since I’ve known him. ‘Am getting it fixed after fire. Some of frame is able to be saved. Some of padding also rest is new. Including upholstery. Is not quite same fabric as before,’ he adds, as more of the Chesterfield emerges from the van, showing itself to be covered in chintzy pink roses rather than chintzy apricot ones. ‘But is same sofa. In essence. If you are getting what am meaning.’
Wordlessly, I go to Bogdan. I lean my head on his chest. And I begin to cry.
‘Hear, hear,’ he says, softly, patting my back and meaning, I assume, there, there. ‘Am glad this is making you happy.’
Because only someone with a soul like Bogdan’s would realize that, despite my tears, I’m happy.
I mean, it’s not just happiness, obviously. There are some nerves mingled in. A general sense of high emotion, what with the wedding, and Mum, and Cass, and Joel, and Dillon …
But I’m so, so happy to see the Chesterfield again – to even have the whisper of a glimmer of a hope that I might get its magic back – that this is mostly what my tears are about.
�
�Well, this is all very kind of you, Bogdan, but I honestly don’t know where it’s going to go in the main sitting room,’ Joel is saying, sounding faintly alarmed, as the two random Moldovans start to lug the frankly atrocious-looking lump of furniture towards the house. ‘Libby, darling, can you come and sort this out, please? It’ll have to go in one of the cottages, or upstairs in the attic until we can decide a better place for it …’
‘The attic is fine,’ I say, firmly, wiping my tears away with the back of my sleeve, and heading for the house myself. ‘Come on. I’ll show you the way up. I’ll be back out in a couple of minutes, Dillon,’ I add. ‘Unless you want to come in for a cup of tea?’
‘No, no. I’m grand out here, sweetheart.’ Dillon drops his cigarette to the gravel and stubs it out with his heel. ‘Good to see you again, Joel,’ he adds, pleasantly. ‘And many congratulations on the upcoming nuptials.’
‘Thanks, Dillon. And it’s great to see you again, too.’ Joel is still looking fairly pissed-off about, well, everything, but his excellent manners won’t permit a hint of incivility. ‘Won’t you come in for a cup of tea?’
‘I’m all right, mate, actually. Mind if I have a bit of a stroll about? This is a gorgeous place you’ve got here.’
Without waiting for an answer, he wanders off across the (very) well-tended lawn, towards the lake.
Even though Rachael/Rebecca have both offered, very kindly, to arrange for my dress to be brought down to Aldingbourne for me, I’ve decided to go up to London this morning and collect it myself.
I mean, it’s not like there’s a huge amount I can actually be doing back at the house today. The assistants have it all well delegated and under control, from the big pre-wedding clean of the little chapel beside the lake, to the setting-up of the tables for the rehearsal dinner in the big dining room. Flowers were arriving for this evening’s dinner as I set out for the station, and I could see some of the chefs who have been drafted in for the occasion heading out to the walled garden to pick some of the biodynamic vegetables and herbs that are grown there.
Honestly, it’s better for me to be out of the way of all this fuss. And it’ll keep my nerves in check, to actually go and Do Something today.
A Night In With Grace Kelly Page 24
