‘What’s ass’s milk?’ Lottie was pretty sure her brainpower had deserted her – maybe when her muscles had got unknotted so had her mind.
‘It’s ass’s milk that is good to bathe in.’ Pip kicked her feet up out of the tub so that she could admire her newly painted multi-coloured toenails.
‘I bet champagne is too.’ Sam grabbed the nearest bottle of Bollinger, held it above her head with a flourish and then sent a cascade into the tub.
Lottie gawped open-mouthed and then her feet floated up of their own accord as she leant back and stared at the ceiling. Maybe that was what had happened to her mind; it had just floated off. Tippermere and the village of Kitterly Heath might only be separated by a distance that was practically non-existent, in tangible terms, but as far as the mindset and habits went, they might as well, Lottie decided with glum finality, be on different planets.
‘Should you have…?’
‘It’s okay, babe, it isn’t the vintage stuff.’
Oh, so that was alright then. She really hoped that Scruffy didn’t decide to drink the water when they got out. Not that it could make him any loopier than he already was.
‘Right, time to stop loafing about; the real party is about to start.’ Samantha had sensed, like the perfect host she was, that the mood was about to slip. She was bouncing about in a way that mildly resembled her recently rescued mutt and, as far as Lottie could see, it was just as genuine.
‘What do you mean, start?’ Lottie had thought this was as good as it got.
‘Grubs up.’ Sam was already out of the hot tub, totally naked and totally unperturbed by the three pairs of eyes that were locked firmly in her direction. Lottie glanced down with a guilty start. Hadn’t she always been taught it was rude to stare?
But it did look like Sam was used to it. Maybe, Lottie thought, it was a result of too many Brazilian waxes, and frequent pool parties where everybody inspected everybody else’s boob jobs.
‘Come on, everyone out, chop chop, it’s fun time.’ She grinned, a wide unaffected grin that would have smitten a premiership football player, if she hadn’t claimed one all of her own years ago. ‘If you don’t, I will let Scruffy dog in.’
‘Hell, don’t you dare.’ Pip was out of the tub, chastely covered with a borrowed bikini. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Oh he loves the hot tub, him and Davey play for hours in it.’
Pip stared, as though expecting hairs and dog debris to appear from out of the bubbles.
‘Don’t worry, babe, I’ve had it cleaned. Someone does it every day, I mean, you know what men are like.’ She pulled a face. ‘All that hot air comes from both ends.’
Lottie caught Amanda’s eye and they both started to giggle, and in that moment Lottie decided she did actually like Amanda quite a lot, even if the woman did have the power to ruin Billy’s life. Maybe she should talk to her about that. Soon. When her head felt a bit clearer.
Lottie’s head didn’t get a chance to clear. The ‘grub’, it turned out, was good old fish and chips, eaten with fingers and served with a side of several more bottles of champagne. And presented by topless waiters.
‘Don’t tell Davey, will you?’ Sam licked her fingers then wiped them on a pristine white napkin and accepted a top-up.
‘Doesn’t he approve of semi-naked men in the house?’ Pip grinned and resisted the urge to manhandle the nearest man, who had the type of tan and six pack that made her literally drool. She hadn’t seen a man like this since she’d moved to Tippermere. Men in riding gear with a whip in hand had a certain appeal (well that was partly down to the whip, she had to admit), but man grooming like this stirred memories in neglected parts of her body. She propped her head on her hand and stared. Longingly. ‘I could offer to take them home for you?’
‘Oh no, I don’t mean that.’ The guffaw was unexpectedly loud from the petite Sam, but from the way the dog just cocked an ear slightly, Pip guessed a full-bodied laugh was normal around here. ‘I meant,’ she leant forward conspiratorially, and Lottie, trying to do the same, nearly tipped forward into what was left of her chips. She flicked a piece of batter out of her fringe and tried to concentrate. ‘Don’t tell him about the chips.’
‘Won’t he smell them?’ Amanda, who up until this point had hardly said a word, which was her normal way, finally spoke up. She had no objection to fish and chips, in fact they’d been a nice change and had actually sobered her up a bit, but they did stink, didn’t they? Chips were like smoke, the smell just lingered.
‘Never thought about that, babe. Although he’s not that good at noticing stuff, so he might not, and he’s away for a couple of days on some training thingy.’
‘Training thingy?’ Pip had been hoping she might bump into Sam’s other half for two reasons. One, Elizabeth had asked her to find out more about Mr Simcock senior, and two, she still wanted to wangle an interview with his manager, who was newsworthy as well as swoonworthy. In fact, just thinking about him had put her off the semi-naked man hovering at her elbow. Well, not entirely put her off, but certainly distracted her.
‘When the season finishes they all go off.’ Sam waved a hand in the general direction of what could have been France, except the way the dog sat up, he obviously just took it to mean the cupboard. ‘But when they come back.’ She leant forward over the breakfast bar and lowered her voice. Even the dog stilled, one big ear bent over, the other pointing to the sky. ‘Hang on.’ She jumped up and the other three girls shot upright as Scruffy went into a spin chasing his tail and growling at his own back end. Sam ignored him and dug into a kitchen drawer, finally finding what she was after. Three envelopes. Gold. Naturally.
‘Here, this is what I’m celebrating. I nearly forgot, aren’t I an airhead? I bet you all thought I was mad having a party just for Scruffy.’ She giggled and Lottie squirmed self-consciously and hoped she hadn’t noticed.
The three girls stared, then Lottie picked hers up and turned it over as though it might bite.
Pip caught on first, grinning. ‘You aren’t?’
‘Open, open.’ Sam clapped her hands and the dog gave a large echoing bark of encouragement.
Amanda was the first to open hers, carefully prising the flap open, as though she was planning on reusing it. Which naturally she wasn’t – recycling had never been high on her agenda.
As the stiff, heavily embossed card slipped out of the envelope, she felt herself sober up. Instantly. If she’d thought Marcus’s funeral had been ostentatious, then this was obviously going to take it to a whole new level. This was going to be the wedding of the year. It said so on the invite. ‘Wow, congratulations.’ It sounded a bit lame to her own ears, but Sam was smiling.
‘Thanks, hun. We’re just so excited. And I want you to be our star guests.’
‘Star?’ Pip was looking sceptical. ‘What about all the A-listers?’
‘Well, you’re going to be my star guests.’ Sam’s enthusiasm was not to be muted, not even by Pip. ‘I mean Davey’s mates will come, obviously, and then the magazine has insisted on some other people.’
‘Exactly how many?’ Pip was laughing.
‘I think there’s a couple of hundred, or it could be more, I mean, I can’t exactly remember, I wasn’t paying that much attention, to be honest. You will come? It will be fab.’
‘Of course we will, won’t we?’ Pip nudged Lottie in the ribs.
Lottie, who had finally decided it was safe to open the envelope, had done so with a characteristic abandon that had been known in the past to tear the contents apart and lead to judicious use of sticky tape. This card was made of sterner stuff and emerged from the attack unscathed. ‘But what am I going to wear?’ A wedding was one thing, but a wedding with footballers and film stars? Lottie suddenly realised that champagne in a hot tub was just the start. ‘I mean, thank you, its brilliant, you’re brilliant, it’s great and er, congratulations.’ Maybe she could just wear her normal stuff and blend into the background.
‘Well, whatever you wea
r, it’s not going to be riding breeches.’ Pip had a raised eyebrow.
Maybe not, then.
‘Hey, we can have a girlie shopping trip.’ Sam was clapping her hands again. It reminded Lottie of a seal, which was unkind. It was just her brain still wasn’t working properly; she’d got overload.
‘Max has made us cocktails to celebrate. Even Scruffy has got one.’
‘Don’t tell me he’s going to be best man?’ Pip rolled her eyes as the buff body of Max loomed large, carrying bright-blue cocktails. She tried to decide if he was the man she’d just been on the verge of propositioning, or a different one. They all looked remarkably similar.
‘Don’t be daft.’ Sam giggled. ‘He’s ring-bearer.’
Lottie had a sudden vision of him sitting, tongue lolling and two gold rings balanced on the tip, until he closed his mouth and swallowed, just as the vicar put his hand out for them. ‘He hasn’t got hands.’
Sam looked back at her blankly.
‘He’s got paws. So how can he hold the rings?’ She patted the slobbering, excited dog on his head.
‘Oh I see what you mean, babe. We’re putting them on a ribbon, you know, tied to his collar. He’s such a handsome boy, aren’t you?’
The blue cocktails were surprisingly nice, in fact very moreish, and seemed to knock the bubbles right out of Lottie’s head. And the music, when the ever-helpful Max put it on, knocked everything else out. It was only when Lottie was stood centre stage, with a very tipsy Amanda, on the large lounge coffee table, rocking to ‘I Love Rock and Roll’ that she remembered about her earlier urge to quiz her new best buddy. I mean, it was important, this was about her Dad and the one place she’d called home.
Admittedly, she had wanted to get away (but that was more to escape Billy’s fame and reputation rather than the man himself and Folly Lake), and it hadn’t been particularly, well ‘homely’, but it was theirs. And she wasn’t ever going to go back, so it didn’t really matter to her, not really. But it did to Billy. Tiggy said so. Repeatedly. And without Folly Lake, would Billy still be Billy? And would Tippermere be torn apart? The thought of Tippermere changing forever made her feel a bit queasy. Although how much of that was down to the champagne swilling about on top of chips she wasn’t sure.
‘Have you met Tiggy?’
Amanda, mid rock, gave her a startled look and dropped her air guitar. ‘Tiggy?’
‘She works for dad, you know the mad dog groomer.’
‘I’ve met her.’ Amanda giggled. ‘She looks like a spaniel.’
‘Exactly.’ Lottie was glad they were on the same wavelength.
‘One that hasn’t been groomed.’
‘I know. I think,’ she stopped dancing for a moment and looked earnestly at the other girl, ‘that she fancies dad.’
‘Really? Is that okay?’
‘Well he is old enough to make his own decisions, you know.’
For some reason Amanda found that statement funny, so Lottie did as well, even if she was being serious. It also gave her the courage to tackle this head-on. ‘Why did you go and see Uncle Dom the other day? Was it about the equestrian centre?’
Lottie was too drunk to notice the hesitation.
‘Maybe. They offered to help me sort it out.’
‘Oh.’ This was nice, Lottie decided. Everybody was nice. ‘Do you need help? I could help.’ She looked at Amanda hopefully, realising this could be the perfect way to make sure nothing bad happened.
‘You’re so sweet.’ Amanda hugged her, which was a bit unexpected. ‘Everybody is.’
‘Including Tom, he’s sweet isn’t he?’ She thought she’d throw that one in, just for good measure.
‘Is he?’ Amanda giggled and Lottie wasn’t sure if that meant she knew him and was pretending she didn’t, or she didn’t and was pretending she did. Either way, it was too complicated.
None of which exactly answered any of Lottie’s pressing questions, but did leave her thinking that maybe she should stop worrying. About everything.
But it was during the second rendition of ‘It’s got to be perfect’ that she had a sudden urge to talk to Rory and ask him if it ever would be. Perfect that was. Except he didn’t answer. Not even on the sixth ring.
She glared at the phone, which was actually flashing several text messages from Rory that she’d not heard. It was typical, though, that when she did actually really need to talk to him, he was too busy. And not listening.
‘Milly, Molly, Mandy doesn’t need you to jump in and save her, Uncle D is her hero!!!’ Sending the text was probably a mistake, and not just because it was bloody hard to press the right buttons when she couldn’t quite see straight. It took about ten attempts, and even then some of the words didn’t look quite right. But she was cross. And he had made that comment about falling on his sword, which was uncalled for. But as soon as she pressed ‘send’ she felt churlish. She’d already told Rory that her uncle could sort his horse better than he could; she was now telling him that the man he swore was gay was also better with women. Not that she’d actually said that, but he might take it like that. And she didn’t mean it; she was just cross. So she immediately followed it up with ‘Love you bucketloads’ and sixty (or so) kisses in the shape of a squiffy heart, not that she was sending him a wonky heart, she was sending him the real deal, and blamed Pip for that distortion. Pip was playing air guitar and nudging her elbow at a critical point and she just couldn’t start all over again.
‘You aren’t texting lover boy again are you?’ Pip rolled her eyes and made a lunge for the phone, which Lottie managed to drop down her own cleavage just in time.
‘No.’ The air of innocence didn’t wash.
Except she hadn’t texted Rory. In her drunken state she’d actually sent the texts to Billy. It might have been Rory who had been texting all night, but she’d missed the fact that the very last one had come from her father, requesting that she return his horsebox, unscathed, in the morning because he had told someone they could borrow it. It had occurred to her that it was a very strange text for Rory to send, but she decided there was obviously some hidden message in there that she’d been too drunk to understand. So she just hit reply.
***
Billy might have been shocked by the second text from his inebriated daughter, if he’d got round to reading it. But the incoming first one had woken him up from his doze, sending the cat that had been snoozing on his ample stomach spitting off into a corner. It was soon snarling from the safety of a wardrobe top as the fuming Billy crashed around the room for clothes, and he was on his way out before he even realised that he had another message. Six pints later, after being forcibly ejected from the pub by a tired landlord who thought that closing times were there for a purpose, he headed home for the comfort of a whiskey bottle.
The last thing Billy saw, before passing out, was his daughter’s heart. He’d wanted to reread her text, try and make sense of just how Dominic intended to ruin his life once and for all. But all he could see was X after X after X, that became sex and eggs. And nothing made any sense at all. Not even the fact that his simple request for Lottie to return the horsebox had triggered a response that was as confusing as it was unexpected.
Elizabeth had asked him to push Tom in Amanda’s direction, hadn’t she? Not to jump in and chat up Amanda himself. And why did Lottie know about that anyway?
He closed his eyes and wished the world would stop moving. He’d thought Dom had called a truce, but now he was showing his true colours. Determined to finish off Billy once and for all.
The sex and eggs swirled around in his brain and turned into an image of Alexa. Laughing, waving, falling. And Dom was shouting, throwing eggs.
Chapter 15
Whilst Lottie was experiencing a day of total contrasts and a fair bit of unprecedented, for her, hedonism, Tom Strachan was having an altogether different kind of day in his supposedly tranquil country escape.
‘Believe me, I have not come here because I want to.’ Tamara Stra
chan glanced around the cottage and sniffed. She had never, ever, in her whole life been in such a poky hole. Tom must have completely lost his mind. ‘What on earth were you thinking of, bringing Tabatha here?’
‘What on earth were you thinking of, raiding my fucking bank account and buggering off to Spain with that—’ He couldn’t think of a polite word to describe his ex-manager, or his nearly ex-wife.
‘It wasn’t Spain, it was Italy.’ Tamara picked up a brass jug and stared at it. ‘Weird.’ Then she put it back down and brushed her hands together to remove the imaginary dust.
‘I thought it was Madrid?’ For a moment curiosity overrode his disinterest.
‘Milan, much classier.’
Tom reserved passing judgement. ‘So, why the hell are you here? Worried you hadn’t ruined my life effectively enough?’
Tamara gave a short laugh and folded her arms. ‘You don’t need any help with that, darling.’
‘Well, I know you aren’t interested in having your daughter, and I haven’t got any money left, so what is it now?’
‘I’m here to help you, actually.’
Tom gave a short laugh. ‘Well that would be a first. Excuse me if I’m sceptical.’
‘We were good together once.’
‘Once being the operative word. What are you after, Tam?’
‘Nothing. I’m here to deliver a message, actually, from your father. And I do wish you’d call me Tamara.’
‘You, a messenger? Pull the other one; what’s in it for you?’
‘Why not let’s just say I felt a tiny bit guilty.’
‘Let’s not. You need a conscience to feel guilt.’
‘It doesn’t have to be like this between us, can’t you forgive and forget, Thomas?’
Tom looked at his glamorous soon-to-be ex-wife and wondered how they had ever thought it would work. He’d not seen false eyelashes like that on anyone since he’d been here, in fact he was on the verge of laughing at the whole ludicrous sight. In the city it worked, but here the hideously high platform shoes, skinny jeans and trendy, shocking-green leather biker jacket just looked ludicrous, even on her. As did the red lipstick that used to turn him on, and the dark pencilled-on eyebrows.
The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights Page 115
