Darling April, my love, my inspiration,
Without you these paintings would not exist. Without you I would be as sterile as other men, working in dark futility.
My elemental work is dedicated to you. Should I leave you – and I swear I never will – Oceanic Calming is your insurance that I will return. It was created out of the roaring, surging torrent of our love; it siren-calls our passion teasingly to all those lonely souls unlucky enough never to have known such emotion. It is yours. Always. When you part with it you will have parted with my heart.
Your devoted and adoring, Noah.
When April had first shown it to Jix, he’d shrieked with laughter. ‘What a load of old cobblers! God Almighty, April – what the hell was he on? Who wrote this for him? No, don’t tell me – my mum’s got similar stuff upstairs. The love letters of Godfrey Winn! Jesus!’
Then he’d seen April’s tears, and handed the letter back quickly and made her a cup of tea.
She’d told him this morning that she’d brought it with her, and proof of her identity – and his reaction had been predictable. ‘For God’s sake don’t show it to anyone. They’ll laugh in your face.’
But Penelope wasn’t laughing.
‘Very well.’ She folded the pages and handed them back to April. ‘I’ll need to speak with my co-owners, of course – so if you could leave the painting with me for a day or so . . .’
‘No way.’ Jix pushed his hair from his face. It immediately tumbled back again. ‘The painting and April stay together. We want an immediate decision.’
Penelope stared longingly at the two-foot-square daubs of colour. April held her breath. The tape had worked its way round and Beethoven was tinkling the Moonlight Sonata again.
Penelope opened the bidding. ‘Two thousand pounds.’
‘Four,’ Jix said quickly.
‘Two and a half.’ Penelope hadn’t even broken into a sweat.
‘I’ll take three.’ April’s lips had gummed themselves together. She prised them apart. She hoped Penelope wouldn’t see the urgency in her eyes. ‘Three thousand pounds. Now. In cash . . .’
Penelope winced. ‘Cheque.’
‘Sorry. Only cash.’ April could already visualise the notes, crammed together, fresh and crisp, in the chocolate tin under the bed.
‘Very well.’ It was a rapid capitulation. ‘You’ll have to wait while I go to the bank. We don’t hold cash reserves here. I’ll call one of my assistants to wait with you until I return.’
The assistant, young and slender and a pale imitation of the splendid Penelope, must have been listening to every word, if the speed with which she appeared from the antechamber was anything to go by.
‘Elise will take care of you in my absence.’ Penelope was striding towards the door. ‘I won’t be long.’
Elise eyed them warily. April wanted to rush round the silent room punching the air. Three thousand pounds! Three thousand! And she still had at least ten more of Noah’s pictures at home. Not, of course, that she’d get rid of them. This was the last time. But – oh, what an investment for Bee’s future!
‘You could have got a lot more,’ Jix said. ‘She settled for three so quickly that she’d probably have parted with double.’
‘I know, but I’m useless at haggling, and a definite three thousands pounds right now is a damn sight better than six thousand maybe. We can hire a car, and pay for all sorts of things, and get Cairey racing and – ’
Jix shook his head. ‘The money is for you and Bee. Yes, sure, we’ll use some now. But the rest must be saved for when you and Noah get back together and move to the roses-round-the-door cottage. You’ve worked so hard for it. And the last lot didn’t go that far, did it? Rent and bills and things have a huge appetite.’
April sighed. Jix, of course, was right. But it was such a lovely heady feeling to have so much money – and all in one hit. It was a million times better than winning the Lottery.
Elise made a strange little mewing noise in her throat, and indicated the painting. ‘The – um – Matlock ... do you collect him?’
April smiled. Maybe Elise hadn’t been ear-wigging that closely – or at least not to the early part of the conversation.
‘Sort of. Why?’
‘I saw him once,’ Elise looked star-struck, ‘at an exhibition. He’s very – um – hunky. Not like an artist at all.’
‘More like a rugby player,’ April agreed nostalgically, with a shiver of ancient lust. Noah had always been a bit of a show-off when his paintings were on display. ‘So where was this exhibition?’
‘Swaffield. Last year. The Corner Gallery. I was working there during the summer holidays before being taken on here full time. He was over from France for a couple of days.’
April and Jix exchanged startled looks. Swaffield was only a couple of miles out of Bixford. They’d missed that one. April wanted to cry. Noah had been so close – and yet he hadn’t made contact. She guessed he’d been too busy . . . And now he lived in France, did he? Well, she supposed the loft-living harpy who had taken her place had by now given up her career and was happily parasiting off Noah’s new-found fame.
April and Jix had chased so many trails over the years that had simply dwindled out and gone cold. All their letters had been returned unopened. No wonder. They hadn’t even considered that he’d left the country. Noah was obviously settled in some rustic gîte, dining al fresco on non-stop Calvados and runny Brie, painting in the sunshine . . .
‘He’s coming back again.’ Elise broke into this Peter Mayle fantasy. ‘Noah Matlock. In September. I mean, I thought you might like to know, as you’re keen on his work.’
The pristine gallery swirled. Beethoven suddenly became a rap drumming in April’s ears. Hoping that she wasn’t going to be sick on the waxed lime floor, she swallowed. ‘What – er – back to Swaffield, you mean?’
‘The Corner Gallery again, yes.’ Elise nodded. ‘On the twenty-sixth of September – I know because that’s my birthday. He’s exhibiting his new French stuff. All very Picasso, so I’ve been told.’
The door opened and Penelope breezed through, an envelope in her hand. She smiled with a refined air of lascivious greed as she handed it over, and April counted the fifty-pound notes and signed the receipt, and none of it registered. The only thing that registered was that Noah would be here, a couple of miles away, and she would see him – and introduce him to Bee – in a little over a month’s time.
That evening, the Copacabana was thrumming. It was the running of the Bixford Cup, a prize donated every three months by Oliver, and attracted hugely knowledgeable dog-going crowds. A big race meeting meant that all the celeb owners were out in force. Martina had decided the cocktails tonight were to be champagne only, and April had served Blue Velvets to Jimmy White, Tibetan Monkeys to Ronnie Wood and, surprisingly she felt, a couple of very pretty La Vie En Roses to Vinnie Jones.
While the other cocktail waitresses were going through their quarterly swoon over the clutch of famous faces, April could see only one. Beautiful and battered, Noah’s image was in her head all the time, and had been ever since she and Jix had left the gallery.
‘April!’ Martina’s roar shattered the on-loop daydream just at the part where Noah had again spotted her across the crowded gallery and rushed, in slow-motion – naturally – towards her, his arms outstretched, his love enfolding both her and Bee for ever.
‘Uh?’ April blinked wildly.
‘You’ve been stirring that Queen Mum for five damn minutes!’
‘Oh God – have I?’ April looked down at the champagne and Tanqueray Gin. Despite the fact that she’d been whisking it with the jigger for so long, it looked flat and unappetising. She smiled apologetically at the waiting customer. ‘I’ll chuck it away and do another one.’
‘And you’ll pay for it,’ Martina hissed. ‘OK?’
‘Of course.’ April gave a blissful smile. The majority of the three thousand pounds, the notes rolled in bundles and secured with
elastic bands, was stashed in the chocolate tin – and not in a bank since that could only reduce her overdraft. Tonight, the cost of one Queen Mum was neither here nor there.
Five hundred pounds of the money had already been earmarked that afternoon for hiring a car for Bank Holiday Monday and registering Cair Paravel for his first race under his new ownership at Ampney Crucis stadium. Jix had done both the deals by telephone and at the end of the second conversation had hung up and looked bewildered.
‘Everything OK?’ April had asked.
‘Yeah – I suppose so.’ Jix had continued to look flummoxed. ‘But that lady I’ve just been talking to –’ he’d gazed at the pad in front of him where he’d been jotting down details – ‘what was her name? Oh, yes, Peg Dunstable – she’s a bit odd. She says she owns the stadium, but she kept singing Whatever Will Be Will Be at me.
April had giggled. ‘Really? She’s probably just the cleaner or something. And, you never know, the song title might be an omen. We’ll find out soon enough when we get there, won’t we?’
The feature race of the evening was just starting. Through the plate-glass windows April could see the crisscross of the spotlights, and hear the excitement rising in a cloud. The customers were drifting away from the bar, clutching their Kir Royales and Viva Glams, towards the viewing balconies. She took the opportunity of leaning back below the optics and flexing her toes inside the absolute bliss of the pink canvas crossover sandals.
‘Don’t let my mother see those.’ Sebastian grinned at her from the plastic palm tree end of the bar. ‘She’ll have a fit.’
She hadn’t seen him arrive. April really wanted to squirm her feet away out of sight. She certainly didn’t want to indulge in light-hearted banter with Sebby. He’d been over-friendly for weeks now. She gave a girlish giggle. ‘I know! But they’re so comfortable.’ God! Now she really did sound as if she was in her dotage.
Sebastian nodded in a distant sort of way. She couldn’t blame him. There wasn’t much he could say to that, really. He looked lovely, April thought, in black jeans and a white T-shirt. She unpeeled herself from the back of the bar.
‘Sorry – did you want a drink?’
‘No, thanks all the same. I’m waiting for Brittany to meet me here, then I’m taking her out to supper.’ Sebastian sighed. ‘Which means somewhere in Chelsea where there’ll be at least half a dozen other A-listers and a load of paparazzi.’
‘And you don’t enjoy that?’
‘I hate it. But for Brittany it goes with the territory. Sometimes I’m sure that she encourages them – lets them know in advance where she’ll be, you know?’
Possibly, April thought, tidying the swizzle sticks in a mindless way. Maybe she’d do the same if she thought her face would be all over the papers the next morning. It must be a heck of a buzz. ‘So where is she at the moment? Getting glammed up?’
‘Hopefully belting back down the M40. She’s been on a recce.’
April looked blank. ‘Oh, right.’
‘She’s sussing out the stadiums that have tendered for the Frobisher Platinum. She’s been to Oxford today.’ Sebastian hitched himself onto one of the bar stools. ‘It’s all a bit embarrassing really, because, of course, my parents want it to be here – and think that because Brittany and I are – well – seeing a lot of each other, that it’s a foregone conclusion.’
‘Oh well, yes, I suppose they would . . .’
April suddenly wished there would be an influx of drunken footballers all wanting Gilda Tops. Anything rather than having to sit here chatting to the dreaded Sebastian, who at any minute was bound to fire off a barrage of questions about Bee and Cair Paravel. Sadly, everyone had decamped to watch the Gillespie Cup.
She shrugged. ‘And it isn’t, then? A foregone conclusion?’
‘Not at all.’ Sebastian looked quite shocked. ‘Brittany is doing everything above board. All the tracks that have tendered are being inspected and considered in the same way. I’ve been along with her to most of them, but there are still plenty to see.’
April nodded and mopped up pools of water where the ice-making machine had got a bit overexcited. She knew all this, of course, from Jix. It was all so damned difficult, pretending all the time, having to remember exactly what she was supposed to know. ‘Um – so Oliver and Martina would obviously be really upset if this – er – Frobisher thingy went somewhere else.’
‘Livid!’ Sebastian looked horrified. ‘Bloody devastated. But Brittany’s her own person. She’ll make the final decision. I just wish I could explain that to them. They’re really pushing us together all the time in a bid to secure the Platinum Trophy. To be honest, I feel totally manipulated.’
April pulled the bowls of pistachios into neat rows and wondered just how long it would be before Sebastian realised he was chattering with wild indiscretion to one of the Gillespies’ more junior employees.
‘Yes, it must make it a bit tricky for you, sort of running with the fox and the hounds, I suppose . . . It’ll be chronic if Brittany decides to stage the race somewhere else and then you have to explain it to your parents.’
They looked at each other – both letting the awfulness of the situation sink in. It occurred to April that maybe Seb wasn’t quite so appalling after all, and she could certainly empathise with his fear of the combined wrath of Martina and Oliver should Bixford not be the selected stadium.
The orgasmic roar from beneath the viewing balcony indicated that the Bixford Cup had been run and won. In less than five minutes, the designer brigade would be back clamouring for Big Apples and Prince Williams. April straightened her mob cap and tugged the frou-frou skirt down over her knickers and moved slightly away from Sebastian.
‘Hi!’ On cue, Brittany breezed round the plastic palm tree, dressed in see-through black and swinging a Lulu Guinness handbag. She kissed Sebastian on the cheek. ‘Sorry to have kept you. The traffic was murder. Are you ready to go? I’m starving!’
Sebastian uncurled himself from the bar stool. ‘Me too – although I’d be happier with pie and mash than a minuscule piece of transparent ham and three artistically arranged cubes of beetroot.’
Brittany wrinkled her nose in disbelief. ‘Once you’ve downed the first bottle of Chardonnay you won’t know what you’re eating.’ She glanced at April without recognition, but smiled anyway. ‘I’ll remove him, shall I? It looks as though you’re going to be busy.’
It did. The hordes were pouring back towards the bar. April sighed. It would mean she wouldn’t be able to fantasise about the Noah reunion for ages . . .
Sebastian motioned his head in a farewell gesture, and as they left April heard Brittany’s well-modulated voice giving the precise lowdown on the pros and cons of Oxford stadium.
‘So, where’s the next one on the list?’ Sebastian asked, as he steered her away from a leering bunch of men in big suits.
‘Oh, I thought we’d go to that one that sent us the plans for their restructured stadium. They sounded so sweet. The – what was it called? Oh yes – the Benny Clegg place. Should be fun.’
April heaved a sigh of relief as she reached for the shaker and two bottles of Moët. If Brittany had said Ampney Crucis it would have completely ruined her perfect day.
Chapter Thirteen
‘They certainly look impressive.’ In the eyrie office Jasmine leaned over Peg’s shoulder, being very careful not to dislodge today’s bouncing blonde ponytail. ‘Are you sure Damon will be up to it?’
The plans for the new Benny Clegg Stadium were spread across two tables. Jasmine and Peg had approached several local building firms with regard to the refurbishment, and eventually accepted the tender from Ampney Crucis’s answer to Me Alpine: Damon Puckett.
‘Course he will, pet,’ Peg said stoutly. ‘He knows exactly what cash we’ve got – and exactly how long he’ll have to finish the job. If we close the stadium immediately after the August Monday meeting, we can be up and running again in two weeks.’
‘Two weeks!’ J
asmine nearly tumbled from her chair. ‘Good God, Peg – this is Damon we’re talking about. It’ll take him two weeks to unpack his sandwiches! Look how long he took to build that extra bit on to the Crow’s Nest Caff! They were out of action for months!’
‘That was because of his hernia. And the paucity of his workforce. I told him it was bloody stupid timing – building an extension at the same time as the Glastonbury Festival. ’
‘Not everybody’s labourers clutter off after Glastonbury in the works van to join a convoy of New Agers in the Brecon Beacons, though, do they?’ Jasmine frowned. ‘Damon always picks such strange people. How do we know that they won’t do it this time?’
‘Because August is the Reading Festival and they don’t go to that because they don’t like heavy metal – and because Ewan is acting as foreman.’
Jasmine grinned. ‘If he ever manages to tear himself away from Clara’s futon, you mean?’
Peg pulled a face. ‘To be honest, pet, I’m not sure that that little rekindled liaison is a good idea.’
‘They both seem ecstatic about it.’
Ecstatic, Jasmine thought, was putting it mildly. That night they’d all met up at the beach hut, and Jasmine had expected there to be a lot of cold-shouldering and huffing and playing hard to get, had been like the last serious partying and pulling opportunity on a Club 18–30 holiday. No sooner had Ewan and Clara clapped eyes on one another than they were chewing each other’s faces and shedding clothes. Feeling very ancient, Jasmine had exchanged affronted glances with Andrew and retired immediately to the privacy of the hut.
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