He Loves Me Not...He Loves Me

by Claudia Carroll

  ‘Go on,’ said Daisy, intrigued, her blue gaze trained on him.

  ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘the production company seem to think that Davenport Hall would be the perfect place to shoot the entire film. They’ve even offered Daisy a job as horse wrangler—’

  ‘Horse wrangler?’ Daisy interrupted. ‘What the hell is a horse wrangler when it’s at home?’

  ‘Basically, they’d want to use all of your horses in the film, and not only that, they’d need you to coach the actors in how to ride properly. You’d be in charge of every horse that they use for filming.’

  ‘You mean I’d get paid for doing what I’m doing now for nothing?’ Daisy asked, brightening.

  ‘You’ve got it,’ Steve replied.

  ‘But what about the house itself?’ said Portia, a little worriedly. ‘Surely they don’t want to film inside here?’

  ‘That’s exactly what they want,’ replied Steve. ‘The location manager checked out the Hall from the Bord Fáilte brochure and thinks it’s the perfect place to film. It’s a period movie so the age of the house is just right; it saves them a fortune in building expensive sets in a studio somewhere. Much easier just to shoot the whole thing here.’

  ‘Steve, you know perfectly well I wasn’t referring to the age of the house,’ Portia interjected.

  ‘Well, what then?’ he asked, sensing the worried note in her voice.

  ‘Oh, just look around you,’ she went on, ‘we’ve got to be realistic here. Look at the state of the place! It hasn’t been painted since the Emergency, the curtains are only being held together by dust and cobwebs, and chunks of plasterwork are constantly falling on top of us from the ceiling. And that’s on a good day. When it’s raining, I sometimes have to put up an umbrella inside the house, the roof leaks so badly. And don’t even get me started on the cold! On the hottest day in July, when people are sunbathing in the town, we still have to wear at least three layers of woollies, so we don’t get frostbite. In winter, I have to scrape frost from the inside of the windows, just to see out. So please don’t expect me to believe for one moment that someone wants to make a film in this house, because unless it’s a movie version of Fawlty Towers, I can’t understand why.’

  Steve took a deep breath. He knew he’d have to tread carefully here.

  ‘Well, you see, Portia,’ he began, putting all of his lawyerly tact into play, ‘the fact is that they love the house exactly the way it is.’

  ‘On the verge of being condemned, do you mean?’ she asked, incredulously.

  ‘Maybe it’s a Hammer House of Horror production,’ giggled Daisy.

  ‘No, it’s not a horror film,’ said Steve.

  ‘What, then?’ chimed both girls in unison.

  ‘The title is A Southern Belle’s Saga: Brent’s Return. It’s a sequel, they tell me. The storyline seems to be that the heroine . . . I forget her name . . . emm—’ He broke off, searching through his notes.

  ‘Magnolia O’Mara,’ said Daisy, suddenly breathless with excitement. A Southern Belle’s Saga was one of her desert island favourite films of all time.

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ Steve went on. ‘Anyway, the heroine comes to live in Ireland among her Irish ancestors, but she’s fallen on hard times and so she rents out, emm . . . let me just quote from the blurb the film production company sent me . . . Ah yes, here it is. Yes. “Magnolia O’Mara, newly settled in Ireland, rents out a decaying, decrepit manor house, miles from anywhere. She then tries to start a new life away from the Deep South, still torn asunder by the ravages of Civil War and away from Brent Charleston, the only man she ever truly loved.”’

  ‘Now you’re making sense,’ Portia said, sitting back in her chair, the mystery solved.

  ‘Just think, Mummy,’ said Daisy, clearly enamoured of the whole idea, ‘there’d be film stars all over the house and we’d get to meet them and maybe they’d invite us to the premiere in Hollywood!’

  ‘Oh, how thrilling, darling,’ replied Lucasta, her cleansing ritual forgotten as she got swept up in the idea of hobnobbing with Hollywood’s A list. ‘Maybe I’d get to meet Shirley MacLaine, we were great friends in a past life, you know, and I’ve always fancied that yummy Marlon Brando, if he’d only lose about ten stone . . .’ she went on, never doubting for a second that Hollywood royalty, no matter how overweight, would be magnetically attracted to her.

  ‘Steve, who’s starring in the film, do you know?’ asked Daisy, beside herself with excitement, her tears long forgotten.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he replied vaguely, ‘I wrote the name down somewhere.’ He leafed through yet another mound of papers.

  ‘Yes, here we are,’ he said, putting on his glasses to read the tiny typewriting on the page he produced. ‘I’m afraid the star isn’t anyone I’ve ever heard of, some actor called Guy van der Post.’

  ‘Guy van der Post!! But he’s the sexiest man alive,’ gasped Daisy, almost falling off her chair with shock. ‘Did you see him in Unbelievable Cruelty Two? He was amazing, he’s just so talented,’ she said dreamily, his talent clearly having nothing to do with her interest in Guy van der Post.

  ‘I’m afraid I missed that film, Daisy,’ said Steve. Only Portia seemed to notice that his soft brown eyes never left her face.

  ‘And just think, my dearest,’ said Lucasta, ‘he’s going to be making a film here, with us! Oh, how exciting! I don’t suppose you found out what his star sign is, Steve?’ she asked.

  ‘Emm, no, I’m afraid that didn’t arise,’ he replied tactfully. ‘What do you think, Portia? You’re very quiet,’ he added as he watched her walk slowly to the window and idly wipe some of the filthy dust from the shutters.

  Portia looked at him, calm as ever. She had been inwardly marvelling at both her mother and sister and this great talent they shared for completely overlooking anything remotely disagreeable. Ten minutes ago, Daisy had been sobbing her heart out for the loss of her father and now all she could think about was some actor with a very silly name.

  ‘How much?’ was all she said aloud.

  ‘I think you’d better sit down for this,’ he replied.

  ‘All right,’ said Portia, doing as she was told.

  ‘Have a look at this,’ he went on, ‘and that’s only their first offer. I’m sure we could do much better than this.’ And he handed her a sheet of paper with a figure written on it. Lucasta and Daisy watched her face intently, knowing the final decision would rest with her. Now that Blackjack had deserted them, there were no two ways about it: Portia was the boss.

  She glanced at the sum of money offered and went even whiter than usual. It wasn’t a fortune by any means, but it more than made up for what Blackjack had cleaned them out of. A thousand thoughts raced through her head, all fighting for airtime.

  Throughout her life, Portia had dreamt of restoring the Hall to its former glory and running it as a fabulous, five-star country house hotel. She’d even gone to college in Dublin to study Hotel Management after she’d left school, probably the happiest and most independent time of her life. It was a four-year course and by her third year she was top of her class, an A student brimming with ideas for the renovation of her ancestral home and then . . . disaster struck. Blackjack casually informed her that in an attempt to double her college fund at the racetrack, he’d lost it all, leaving her with no choice but to return home. True, the money Romance Pictures were offering wasn’t nearly enough to carry out the full scale of work she would have wished, but at least she could get part of the roof repaired, maybe even expand the home farm, hire some help and generate a decent income there. It wasn’t exactly a win on the National Lottery, but it was certainly a very welcome and timely windfall.

  ‘Where do I sign?’ was all she could stammer, her voice sounding as if it came from the next room. ‘Quickly, before they change their minds.’

  She never even heard Steve’s reply, Lucasta and Daisy were too busy cheering and screaming like a pair of teenyboppers at a boy band concert.

  ‘Ladies,
ladies, just a moment please, I’m not quite finished,’ Steve said, raising his voice to make himself heard. ‘That’s not all there is to it, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What can you mean?’ asked Daisy impatiently. ‘Don’t we just sign on the dotted line and have done with it?’

  ‘If only life were that simple,’ he replied, smiling shyly at her. ‘No, Daisy, I’m afraid that the film company have stipulated a non-negotiable condition to the deal going through. One rather important condition.’

  Chapter Three

  THE NEXT FEW months went by in a daze for Portia. She couldn’t believe how quickly everything moved along, once Steve had agreed a deal with Romance Pictures. Soon, huge film production trucks were rolling up outside Davenport Hall and unloading miles of cable, electrical equipment, cameras and lights. So much lighting that Daisy had asked if the entire film were going to be floodlit. Johnny Maguire, the first assistant director on the film, had laughed at her.

  ‘Not a chance, love,’ he’d said, in a flat Dublin accent. ‘You need around sixty lights in these dark rooms just to make them look normal,’ he added, pulling on a cigarette. ‘When was the last time this house was rewired, by the way?’

  Portia was relieved that her mother arrived along just then to change the subject. The house certainly hadn’t been rewired since the rural electrification programme of 1936.

  ‘So when can we expect Guy van der Post to arrive?’ Lucasta asked, breathless with excitement. ‘I think we’ll put him in the Mauve Suite when he gets here, Portia darling, it’s the only bedroom that’s not haunted.’

  It had transpired that the only non-negotiable condition Romance Pictures had to shooting at Davenport Hall was that the leading actors all be housed there. It seemed that the producer, one Harvey Brocklehurst Goldberg, was a keen advocate of method acting and was insisting the cast stay at the location, to make their living there seem utterly believable on film (little realizing how ill prepared Hollywood’s pampered elite would be for the Spartan rigours of Davenport Hall; the US Marines would have had a hard time getting used to the stench of cat wee alone and at least the army are issued with gas masks).

  ‘Well,’ Lucasta went on, pausing only to light a cigarette, ‘the Mauve Suite is haunted, but only by the spirit of Tiddums the Fourth, a very benign ghost.’ Tiddums IV was a favourite ginger cat of Lady Davenport who’d died tragically in a freak accident the previous year, when he’d fallen asleep in the kitchen’s huge Aga.

  Johnny must be well used to dealing with eccentrics, Portia thought to herself. He never batted an eyelid.

  ‘Ah, Guy van der Post won’t be here for a few weeks yet, love,’ replied Johnny. ‘He’s in Thailand shooting the end of the new James Bond movie. I think he’s playing the baddie, you know, the one who gets to wear a tuxedo and say, “Not so fast, Mr Bond.”’

  ‘Oh, we’re just so thrilled to have a Hollywood star staying here!’ her ladyship twittered on, totally oblivious to the fact that Johnny and his crew were trying to work. ‘It’ll be such fun! I’m going to host the most enormous party for you all; you can meet all our lovely neighbours. Some of them are working class too, so you’ll have lots in common . . .’

  She would happily have gone on, only Portia gently but firmly steered her towards the house.

  And then there were the trucks. Dozens of them rolled up the driveway of Davenport Hall and parked in the forecourt in front of the main entrance. Portia and Daisy had no idea what they could all be for, there were so many of them. Johnny had kindly shown them around and patiently explained what each one was used for. There was an entire double-decker bus for catering alone, a truck for make-up and another for wardrobe. In fact, the whole front lawn looked like the circus had arrived. Then there were the three Winnebagos parked right beside the rose garden.

  ‘Is that some sort of kosher food?’ Lucasta had asked innocently when they were pointed out to her.

  ‘Far from it, love,’ Johnny had replied. ‘This is where the stars hang out when they’re waiting to do their scenes.’

  ‘Do you mean like dressing rooms, Johnny?’ asked Daisy, her eyes like saucers.

  ‘Not like any dressing rooms you’ve ever seen before. Take a look at this one!’ said Johnny, opening the door of the first one they came to with a flourish. The neat writing on the door bore the legend ‘Ms Montana Jones’.

  ‘I know that name,’ said Portia, racking her brains to think where she’d heard it before.

  ‘Oh! Montana Jones!’ said Daisy in amazement. ‘I love her! She was in that film Servant in Seattle with Hugh Grant.’

  Daisy was constantly reading magazines with titles like Dish the Dirt, National Intruder and Secrets the Stars Never Wanted You to Know. Consequently, she was very well up on all her Hollywood gossip.

  ‘In fact, wasn’t there a big scandal about her recently?’ she asked, crinkling her forehead as she tried to remember.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Johnny sagely. ‘She borrowed around five million dollars’ worth of jewellery from Tiffany’s for the Oscars last year and, emm, forgot to return it the next day. At least, that’s what she said in court.’

  ‘No, Johnny, I remember now,’ Daisy contradicted him. ‘At her trial, she said that she got so completely rat-arsed drunk at the Oscars that she forgot all about giving back the jewellery. And apparently, she only had two glasses of white wine, you know.’

  ‘Two poxy little glasses of vino? I’d have that for my breakfast,’ said Lucasta. She wasn’t joking.

  ‘Two glasses of white wine in Hollywood means you’re a dangerous, raving alcoholic,’ said Johnny, shaking his head sadly. ‘The poor girl spent six months in the Betty Ford Center after that and her career never recovered. No one would touch her. That’s why she’s doing this film, you know. She’s trying to claw her way back to the top. Anyway, take a look at this.’

  With a flourish, he threw open the door of Montana Jones’s Winnebago and the Davenport ladies trooped in after him. It was an amazing sight.

  ‘It’s more like a hotel room than a dressing room,’ gasped Daisy. And indeed it was. Over thirty feet long, it had a huge double bed at one end and a full dining room at the other. To the left, there was a fully equipped gym, complete with treadmill and rowing machine, with a door leading off to a steam room and sauna. In the central living area, there was an exquisite leather sofa facing a wide-screen TV with a DVD player.

  ‘Wow!’ said Daisy. Her mother and sister were too speechless to do anything but ooh and aah.

  ‘Yup, Montana certainly likes her home comforts,’ said Johnny. ‘And wait till she gets going on the catering staff! She’s vegetarian, vegan, wheat-intolerant, lactose-intolerant . . . In fact, I think the girl lives on blades of grass and nothing else.’

  ‘So that’s how she keeps her amazing figure,’ Daisy said thoughtfully. It was extraordinary, seeing how the stars lived. Like gods and goddesses from another world, she thought. God help them when they saw the inside of the Hall.

  A few days later, in the middle of all this chaos, the phone rang. Portia nearly broke her neck tripping over the electric cables, which the film crew had carelessly strewn all over the estate office, in her rush to answer it. (No such luxury as an answering machine at Davenport Hall.)

  ‘Hello? To whom am I speaking?’ asked a particularly cultured woman in a South Dublin accent. The sort of accent that pronounced ‘Dart’ as ‘Dort’.

  ‘Oh, hi, it’s Portia speaking. Emm, can I help you?’

  ‘Yes, put me through to one of the family, please.’

  ‘Do you mean one of the Davenport family?’ Portia asked, wondering if this was a hoax call.

  ‘Obviously I mean one of the Davenports,’ came the curt reply. ‘Now really, I’ve got caterers arriving in a few minutes and a florist who’s about to have a nervous breakdown and I don’t have all day, so if you could get one of them to the phone I’d be most grateful.’

  ‘Well, this is Portia Davenport speaking, so I suppose I count as on
e of the family,’ said Portia politely, not quite knowing what to make of the stranger’s odd manner.

  ‘Well, you should have said! There was I thinking I was wasting my time with some lackey. This is Mrs de Courcey speaking. Susan de Courcey.’

  ‘Oh, hi!’ said Portia, at a loss as to who this unpleasant woman could be. It momentarily flashed through her mind, was it someone else they owed money to? A new bank manager, perhaps?

  ‘My party planner is just putting the final touches to the guest list for tonight, and we were astonished to see that you hadn’t bothered to RSVP your invitation. We sent it to you weeks ago.’

  Portia racked her brains. An invitation? To what? No, definitely nothing had arrived; at least, nothing that she’d seen although Lucasta frequently hijacked the post and used it to line her cat-litter trays, causing untold problems for Portia when their phone, gas and electricity bills mysteriously went missing and they were suddenly cut off without warning.

  ‘And I said to my party planner,’ Mrs de Courcey went on brusquely, ‘that’s the landed gentry for you, probably too busy hunting, shooting and fishing to answer a simple invitation.’

  ‘Well, I can assure you that no invitation has arrived here,’ answered Portia, taking an instant dislike to this incredibly rude woman. ‘May I ask what the invitation’s for?’

  ‘Our housewarming party, of course,’ said Mrs de Courcey. ‘I’ve invited our two hundred closest friends, mainly legal people, so I don’t think you’d know any of them. But my party planner assures me that the correct etiquette on such occasions is to invite the neighbours too, and I’d hate to think we’d get off on the wrong foot . . .’