The Best Of Times

by Penny Vincenzi

  I’m hoping you will get this safely and that I’ve got the right address; I looked up Grainger in the directory and your farm was definitely in the right place: if you see what I mean!

  My name is Georgia Linley, and I’m the girl you met wandering round your property on the day of the M4 crash last August. You were very kind to me, and I hope I wasn’t rude!

  I know you were incredibly helpful to everybody that day-allowed the air ambulance to land on your field, and brought water for people to drink, and did all sorts of other kind things-so I’m hoping you’ll feel sufficiently interested to read on!

  I am trying to organise a fund-raising concert in aid of the crash victims and their families, many of whom are still in considerable difficulties. I have the support of several people at St. Marks Hospital in Swindon, where the injured were all taken; I could let you have names there, if you’re wanting to check my credentials.

  Patrick Connell and his family have all become good friends of mine. He was the lorry driver who was at the forefront of the crash, and who had given me a lift that day. He was very badly injured, and can’t work at the moment; he’s just an example of one of the many deserving causes.

  We are setting up a charity, in order to make sure that everything is done properly and in a businesslike way. If you log onto crashconcert.linley.com you can check that as well.

  Several musicians have already expressed an interest-nobody very grand yet, I’m afraid-but until we have a venue, we can’t get a great deal further, and that is proving the biggest obstacle so far.

  I wondered if you would be willing to contribute anything, however small, to our setting-up fund; and in due course, obviously, to bring as many people to the concert as possible.

  We’re also looking for a sponsor: any suggestions in that area would be hugely helpful.

  Yours sincerely,

  Georgia Linley (Ms.)

  William sat staring at the letter, concerned not so much with helping Ms. Linley, who sounded rather engaging, and whom he remembered as being extremely pretty, or even with the unfortunate crash victims, who were undoubtedly a very good cause, but wondering if this was a second enormous nudge on the part of the Almighty in the direction of his reestablishing a relationship with Abi. If so, then he should surely respond-before the Almighty gave up on him altogether.

  ***

  Abi had been at work when he rang.

  “Hello, Abi. You all right?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m fine, thanks. You?”

  “Absolutely fine. Abi, I’ve had an idea. Well, I’ve had a letter, actually.”

  “Well… which? Or is it a letter with an idea?”

  “Um… bit of both.”

  “Hmm. Hard to guess this one, William. Film, book, play…”

  “What?”

  “Charades. Didn’t you ever play charades?”

  “Few times. Yes, I see what you mean. Well… what’s the sign for concert?”

  “There isn’t one. William, do spit it out. Please.”

  William spat it out.

  ***

  Three days later, Georgia arrived in the location house, breathless and flushed. “Is Merlin here? Or Anna?”

  “Anna’s in Makeup,” said Mo. “Don’t know where Merlin is.” Georgia hared up the stairs to the bedroom that doubled as Makeup.

  “Anna, Anna, listen to this; it’s amazing, totally amazing. I think we’ve got our venue!”

  CHAPTER 45

  The letters arrived after Christmas. Their presence would be required as witnesses at an inquest on February 19 into the deaths of Sarah Tomkins, Jennifer Marks, and Edward Barnes which occurred on August 22, on the M4 motorway. Details of the time and place of the inquest were also given; and the letter was signed by the coroner’s officer.

  “Well, thank God it didn’t come before Christmas,” said Maeve. “It would have cast a bit of a blight. Not that you’ve got anything to worry about. But still… good to have it over. A line drawn.”

  Patrick nodded; he actually felt he had quite a lot to worry about, however much he’d been reassured that the accident had in no way been his fault. The fact remained that his lorry had gone sprawling across the motorway, bursting through the crash barrier, and the result had been three deaths and dozens of injuries, some of them major. Every time he thought about the inquest, he felt the old, panicky fear…

  ***

  Abi found the thought of the inquest pretty scary also; she had, after all, lied to the police, albeit about nothing to do with the crash, and she still had nightmares about them charging her in connection with drug offences. She had actually taken legal advice on this; the solicitor had told her that since she had not been in possession of any drugs, either at the time the police talked to her or later, they were extremely unlikely to press charges.

  Nevertheless she was a major witness; she would have to stand in the dock or whatever they had at inquests and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the bloody truth, and it could well transpire that she had lied the first time around, and in front of all those people. It was a complete nightmare.

  But at least Christmas was over. Abi hated Christmas usually; she had a few misfit friends, equally at odds with their families, and they would spend the day together, drinking mostly, although they’d cobble a meal together-Christmas odds and sods from M &S and Tesco-and pull some crackers, and even occasionally play charades before the evening really disintegrated, but she was always hugely relieved when it, and its insistence that everyone was part of one great big, happy family, was over.

  The best thing that had happened all Christmas was a text from William that she’d got on Christmas night: Happy Xmas, hope it’s a good one, mine isn’t. William, x. She struggled not to read too much into it, not to presume his wasn’t good because he wasn’t with her, and that the kiss was simply what anyone would put at the end of a text on Christmas Day; but the fact remained that he’d been thinking of her enough to send it. She texted back, Happy one to u2, not bad, thanx, gd 2 hear from you. Abi, and after that a kiss also. She’d put gt at first instead of gd, but that looked a bit keen.

  And now, astonishingly, she was seeing quite a bit of him, albeit on a completely platonic basis…

  She was extremely excited about Georgia’s concert. It had been her idea that it should be held at the farm, festival-style. She had actually suggested something similar to William once before, when he had been talking about diversifications and moneymaking schemes; and he had been surprisingly receptive to the idea then. It really hadn’t been too difficult-amazingly easy, in fact-to repersuade him.

  It was very scary-on a professional basis-and she wasn’t even sure they would be able to pull it off; but if they did… she could launch her party-planning career on the back of it. And see lots of William in the bargain.

  The first meeting about the concert had been… well, it had been extraordinary. An absolutely violent tangle of emotions. She’d expected the tangle, of course, had expected it to be awkward, had expected it to be painful seeing William; in fact, she’d been so scared the few days before she’d almost decided to pull out of the whole thing, to put Georgia-and him-in touch with a friend who was a party planner. But she didn’t.

  They’d agreed to meet in a pub in Bristol on a Saturday afternoon; Abi had arrived far too early and had spent at least fifteen minutes in the loo to avoid sitting waiting for them and looking like a complete loser. When she came out William was sitting at a table with a very pretty black girl, which rattled her considerably at first, until she realised she must be Georgia. And she stood there, just staring at him, drinking him in; and she felt a wave of emotion so violent, so charged with regret and love and intense physical memory, it quite literally took her breath away.

  She must just stay really cool, she thought, refuse to see it as anything but a business arrangement, as William being kind and good and wanting to help both her and Georgia in a venture that would clearly seem relevant to him as well
as to them.

  And then, as she stood there, still watching, he saw her; and he stood up, with those bloody old-fashioned manners of his, pulled out a chair, and beckoned to her to join them.

  “Hi,” she said, walking over, hearing her own voice, calm and steady, not weak and breathless as she was afraid it might be, smiling at him, kissing him briefly, coolly on the cheek-how could she do that when she wanted to kiss him endlessly, desperately?-and then turned swiftly to Georgia.

  “You must be Georgia. Hi. I’m Abi.”

  “Hi, Abi. It’s so good of you to come. William-Mr. Grainger-has been telling me all about you. How you’ve done this sort of thing before, and how you can tell me how to go about it…”

  “Well… I hope so. It’s a huge project, Georgia; I hope you realise just how huge.”

  “I probably don’t. But I’m ready for anything. I’m so, so determined to do it.”

  Georgia smiled; she was sweet, pretty, rather earnest. It would be fun working with her. “Good,” was all Abi said.

  Gradually, the emotional situation eased as they discussed the form of the thing-“I did once suggest a rock festival to William, didn’t I? But I think maybe you’ve got more of a single concert in mind”-possible lead times, possible dates, the vast amount of time and planning it would absorb, how, with the best will in the world, they would need many more people on board-“Don’t look so frightened; it’s for charity-we can get mostly volunteers. It’s a wonderful project, Georgia; I’m really excited about it.”

  Not about working with William, not about having endless access to William; that was out of the equation. Entirely.

  Georgia said they could at least look at a festival.

  “Tell us more what it might entail…”

  Abi told them more: much more. Probably too much more, she thought afterwards. When she started outlining the need for security guards, parking facilities, police involvement, and the infrastructure required, William became visibly worried.

  “A road! Abi, I can’t start building roads.”

  “Well, you might have to. The contractors-”

  “What contractors?” said Georgia.

  “The ones building the stage, setting up the sound systems, all that sort of thing. You’ve got to think big, or it won’t work. Anyway, the contractors and the punters, come to that, need to know they’re not going to get stuck in the mud. You do realise it will rain, don’t you?”

  “No, why?” said William.

  “It just always does. Part of the package.”

  “Oh,” said William.

  Georgia looked at him and then said rather nervously that maybe they should just stick to the idea of a concert. “An open-air one, in the evening, next summer-it could be lovely.”

  Abi said a concert would be all right, but it would be hard to make nearly so much of it. “I think a festival would be much more exciting. You’d get far more publicity, for a start, and a much bigger crowd, something where families could come, bring their kids, camp just for one night, have a few bands playing, dance. People really love that sort of thing; it’s like a miniholiday, and it’s so cool at the moment. That way you’d probably end up with a couple of thousand people… and make a fair bit of money. Even quite big bands bring their fee down if they know it’s for charity. Anyway, whatever the size of the thing, you have to have a stage and audio equipment, and loos, of course. William, are you really up for all this? And are your parents all right about it?”

  William said rather airily that they’d been persuaded to do it: he didn’t add that he’d been pretty evasive about the implications, had sold it to them as a charity concert, which sounded rather charming; he knew they’d be totally opposed to the idea of a festival, with all its unfortunate implications of deafening noise, drugs, and general squalor…

  “No, they’re fine about it,” he said now.

  “Well, that’s great,” Abi said. “Let’s just hope they stay on that side, because they won’t be able to switch very easily. Now, you need a sponsor. To make it financially viable. Put up something like a couple of grand, say, in return for publicity. You might start thinking who to approach.”

  “What, like one of the TV companies or something?”

  “Well, more of a commercial concern, some local manufacturing company or other. I’ll think too. Anyway… what do you think? Now’s the time to say no.”

  Georgia emitted a sort of squeak. Abi looked at her. Her eyes were shining and her hands were clasped together, making a sort of fist. Abi was to get to know that gesture well in the months to come.

  “I think it sounds wonderful,” she said. “We’ve absolutely got to do it. If… well, that is if William… Mr. Grainger’s really up for it. It’s… it’s obviously a very big undertaking.”

  “Please call me William,” said William. “Mr. Grainger makes me feel like I’m my dad.”

  He looked at the pair of them, two sassy, sexy girls, girls he would never have known a year ago, and thought of spending a lot of time with them over the next six months or so. It made him feel dizzy. “I’m up for it,” he said. “Yeah, course.”

  ***

  It was just as well, Georgia thought, that she had the concert to distract her. She viewed the inquest with absolute terror. At the thought of having to stand up in a courtroom, in front of a crowd of people, several of whom were still grieving, and describe under oath how she had abandoned Patrick Connell in his cab and disappeared, failing to provide the evidence that only she could and that had been so crucial to him, she felt violently sick.

  She knew there was no way out of it-it had to be got through-but it was still there, driving her back into her guilt and remorse.

  Moving Away was in the final stages of filming, and the first episode was to be screened in the spring.

  It was awful to think she wouldn’t be seeing Merlin more or less every day; it had been such an incredibly exciting element in the whole thing, just getting ready in the morning, wondering what to wear, whether he’d be there, what he’d say to her. She was still slightly baffled as to what his feelings about her were: nonexistent, she thought on her bad days, but then she would think, on the good ones… Why ask her to go for a drink so often after they’d finished for the day; why spend so much time with her; why make sure she was all right in Jazz’s house?

  He’d even-once or twice-asked her to the cinema, to see some incredibly intellectual foreign films at what he called his local, the Hampstead Everyman, which she hadn’t understood at all, let alone enjoyed-although she’d pretended to, of course-and one wonderful Saturday he’d called her and said he was going to do some Christmas shopping in the Portobello, and if she was around, would she like to join him? She’d loved that, wandering along the stalls, and when they’d finished he asked her if she’d like to have lunch at Camden Lock-“I can’t believe you haven’t been there yet, all this time in London”-and she’d said, trying to sound totally cool, that she’d like that, and had sat in one of the bars alongside the canal, convinced this was really it, that he was going to say he really liked her. But he didn’t; he said he had to get back quite soon after lunch: “The parents are having a party tonight; I have to go back and help.”

  “Will it… will it be a big party?” she said, trying to sound casual, half wondering if he might be going to ask her.

  “About a hundred. Anyone else would have proper help, but Mummy won’t-against her principles, like not having a cleaner, so she’s run herself ragged cooking for weeks, and Pa just hides in his study and pretends he hasn’t noticed.”

  “And lots of famous people there?” she said.

  And, “Yeah, lot of Beeb types, Humphreys, Paxman, Benn, I imagine, the Millibands, possibly Charlie Falconer, but not the Blairs.”

  “God,” she said, “I call that pretty impressive.”

  “Not really. You’re so sweet, Georgia,” he added, smiling at her, “so totally unspoilt still. Stay like it, for goodness’ sake. Don’t get spoilt. I must dash
; can you find your own way back?”

  “Yes, of course. I want to look in some of those shops anyway,” she said quickly.

  And that was how their relationship-or rather their non -relationship-proceeded: two steps forward, two steps back. Exasperating, frustrating, baffling.

  Most of the time she managed to think it was just luvvie stuff, no more than that, along with the hugs and the brotherly kisses; but she still found grounds for thinking it was more.

  She had never talked about him to anyone involved in the production-deliberately. There was no way she was going to risk being laughed at for having an unrequited crush on him. And in any case she wasn’t on those sorts of terms with any of them, except for Anna.

  She tried to find out a bit about him from Linda, who always knew all the gossip about everybody, but she just said vaguely that she really didn’t know much about him except that he was incredibly talented and would soon be a first assistant, probably in the next production he worked on. “You don’t fancy him, darling, do you?”

  “God, no,” said Georgia.

  “Good. Because the words little and shit do come rather to mind.”

  Georgia ignored this; it was such a typical Linda comment.

  And then the mystery was solved-painfully.

  The wrap party was taking place just a week before Christmas; Georgia had bought a sequinned dress that was virtually nonexistent, so short and low-cut it was, and some incredibly long, sequinned fake eyelashes to go with it.

  The party was at Bryn’s house in Putney, a wonderful glass-fronted place on the river. He’d been incredibly generous, provided champagne by the crateful, and Mrs. Bryn, who was a glamorous actress called Jan Lloyd, provided fantastic food. Particularly generous, as she then went out for the evening: “She says no one should be at the wrap parties of other people’s productions,” Bryn said, laughing, when he made his little speech, and actually, as Anna said to Georgia, it really wasn’t very pleasant; you felt like a complete outsider, understood none of the in-jokes, and were deeply wary of discovering any illicit relationships.