by Wendy Holden
Guy, sleep-fogged and conscious of nothing but the strong clench and release action of Samantha's vaginal muscles, grinned happily up at her. If this was a new game, he liked the sound of it. "Finger buffet definitely," he said, circling her nipples with his perspiring digits.
Samantha was delighted. Decisions at last. Now for the menu. "Miniature Peking duck rolls," she recited at him. "Baby hamburgers and tiny tartes au citron." Guy's eyes widened. Even Lalla had drawn the line at food tricks. At this rate, if he played his cards right, he'd be getting the Ping-Pong balls in the bargain. He nodded hard. "Whatever you say."
"Lavatories," Samantha said suddenly, clenching him hard. Guy goggled. He only got the Chinese clutch on very special occasions as it was, and now she seemed to be suggesting golden showers. "If you're sure," he croaked.
"Well, I'm not," said Samantha. The glossy catalog sent to her by the mobile lavatory-unit specialists, Royal Flush, featured two clear favorites. The Oxford, a gleaming navy-blue van with a marble floor, fresh flowers, gilt-framed mirrors, and prints of medieval herbs on the walls, and the Cambridge, a gleaming ice-blue van with a black-and-white-check floor, concealed cisterns with gold flushing handles, and pictures of stately homes. Both were exquisite. Samantha, remembering the concealed cisterns with particular pleasure, moaned ecstatically. Her hands moved upward with slow rapture over her nipples. "It's a question of how blue we want to go, I suppose," she murmured.
"Very blue," gasped Guy, jiggling up and down beneath her excitedly. "The bluer the better."
The Oxford then, thought Samantha, mentally ticking the Toilets box in her head. Really, this was more efficient than a board meeting. Which reminded her. "Sod it," she spat, leaping off Guy at the precise moment he was about to erupt like Vesuvius. "My meeting with the party organizers was five minutes ago."
For Samantha was taking no chances. Everything about the party was to be as sumptuous and professional as possible. The party would be, Samantha was determined, the most lavish that Dame Nancy, let alone the rest of Eight Mile Bottom, had ever seen. It was her opportunity to fight fire with fire-eaters, not to mention with mime artists, with canapes, and with living statues. To this end— and for the delicate matter of the guest list—Samantha had sought expert and expensive advice from Lady St. Felix and the northern editor of Tatler.
They were awaiting her in the sitting room. At first, they were difficult to pick out among the mass of decorations and pictures, but after a few moments of persistent peering, Samantha spotted them by the fireplace.
"Fancy dress," she declared, trotting bossily toward them. "It must be fancy dress. Marie Antoinette and her court, I thought." She had spent the last few days picturing herself undulating up and down in panniers and a straw hat tied with ribbon. "Now we're living in the country, I simply must do her during her Hameau period," she had declared to Guy.
"Why not do her during her post-revolution period?" had been his uncharitable suggestion.
"Awfully ten minutes ago, Marie Antoinette," sniffed the northern editor of Tatler, a girl of twenty-two with no chest whatsoever, the biggest overbite this side of the Natural History Museum dinosaur section, and the name Boudicca Anstruther-Gough-Cleethorpes. She crossed one racehorse leg over another. "Arabian Nights are much more fashionable. Zany Hohenzollern-Briggs brace-removal party was Arabian Nights and it got a double-page spread in the magazine."
Samantha looked thoughtful. It was certainly an idea worth considering. The scene in Punkawallah where, as the viceroy's daughter, she had stripped off to a sequined bikini, joined an Indian wedding party, and taught them all the hokey pokey, had, after all, been a sensation. And if it meant a double-page spread in a society glossy…
The meeting moved on to the guest list. At the top of Samantha's was the mysterious pop star who lived in what several neck-craning drives past had revealed to be an establishment of truly enormous proportions.
"What's he called again?" she demanded, glittering silver pencil poised over a pad of neon-pink notepaper specially bought for the occasion.
"Matt Locke," drawled Boudicca.
"But he'll never come," Lady St. Felix added. "He's a hermit."
Samantha's eyes sparkled. "What, he was in Herman's Hermits? Fantastic. I used to love them." She'd show them she knew a thing or two about pop music.
Boudicca sniggered. "Who? They're prehistoric, aren't they? Matt's only twenty-four, bless him."
Samantha went red with fury.
"Hermit as in never seen in Eight Mile Bottom," supplied Lady St. Felix, as Boudicca's bony brown shoulders continued to shake.
Samantha, her discomfiture forgotten, gave her a calculating stare. "So, he's never been to anyone's party in the village before?"
Lady St. Felix pursed her lips. "Wouldn't even open the village fête last year. So I stepped in. Noblesse oblige and all that."
Samantha's heart swelled with excitement. She knew a challenge when she heard one.
"Yah. After both Matt's albums went double platinum, he became a virtual hermit—you know, a sort of recluse," declared Boudicca. "They're saying in the music industry that he's absolutely terrified of his next album being, you know, panned."
Samantha licked her lips, certain she knew better. Of course Matt was a recluse. Bound to be if all the available local company was a load of muddy yokels, tombstone-toothed Sloanes, hen-keeping alcoholic actresses, and dried-up old toffs. Well, his problems were over now that she was here. There was no doubt he'd leap at the chance to come to a party with miniature Peking duck and smart hired toilets. And what a coup that would be. Her star guest, in every sense of the word.
***
Despite four cups of coffee, half a package of cookies, and five Marlboros, Mark was feeling far from well. The throbbing in his head had intensified. The knowledge that he was a good ten miles from the nearest migraine medicine did not help. Nor did the fact that Rosie had found the whole of last night's episode hilarious.
Why, Mark demanded of himself, was it so amusing that, desperate for inspiration for the column, he had gotten up in the middle of the night and gone walking in the woods at the top of the hill by moonlight? What was so chortlesome about his slipping, smashing forehead first into a tree, and returning home in the early hours with a mild concussion and an egg-shaped lump protruding from his head?
"Thanks for all your sympathy and support," he had snapped at Rosie. "It's not easy, this column business. Try thinking of a few ideas yourself for a change." When Rosie had pointed out indignantly that she was always suggesting things, Mark had lost his temper completely. Information, such as her latest offering, that someone had altered the teashop sign and painted out the h in Penny Farthing, was hardly going to get the newsroom conga-ing. It had been a relief to see the back of her when she'd left to go to the farm.
Alone in the upstairs box room, Mark stared furiously at his laptop, waiting for inspiration to strike. The banging in his head was almost indistinguishable from the constant thudding on the other side of the wall. Hopefully, Guinevere was battering one of the brats to death in the attic. When it came to the slaughter of the firstborn, Mark thought savagely, he was with Herod all the way. After four attempts, the most recent "Green-er Pastures" had struggled past the editor, yet here he was, a week later, facing the tortuous process anew. And with a few special requests from On High to consider. "Get some animals," the editor's last email had read. "Readers like animals. Rumor has it there are quite a lot of them in the countryside." Mark scowled. Sarcastic bastard.
As a series of screams from the road outside rent the air in synchronicity with a staggeringly loud crash from the other side of the wall, Mark sank his head in his hands. Animals seemed about the size of it. Maddeningly, though, Rosie seemed serenely oblivious to the horrors of the rest of the street.
Animals, he thought. Perhaps they were the answer. It would be easy enough to keep them—plenty of people round here did, after all. That field at the back was full of cattle that seemed t
o require no attention of any sort. Cheap to feed as well, just grass. He and Rosie could easily keep, if not a cow, then certainly some smaller-scale herbivore such as a goat or a sheep in the garden. Now that Rosie had gone to all that trouble to sort the lawn out, it seemed ludicrous to leave all that grass unused when it could easily support some livestock. He would get around her by pointing out that not only would it browse back and forth, neatly clipping the grass, but in doing so would also produce eminently useful milk. Not to mention column fodder.
Add a few hens, for the hell of it, not to mention the eggs of it, and you'd be away. Free material as well as free food. Mark slapped his thighs in triumph. What a brilliant idea. Amazing he hadn't thought of it before.
It was surprisingly easy to look the whole subject of animals up on the Internet. Once his modem had battled its personal demons and heaved itself onto the cyber superhighway, Mark was gratified to find a multitude of sites devoted to animal husbandry. There seemed very few animals, in fact, that you could not husband, although he desisted exploring some of the more unsavory-sounding sites suggested by the search engine. Sheep or goats? Pigs or hens? All four? An entire farm, even; you were bound to be able to order one off the Internet, possibly at www.old-macdonald.co.uk. You could, after all, buy practically everything else on it. Mark had even seen a penis for sale once, a wrinkled gray specimen in a jar of formaldehyde, offered on a slightly sinister auction site.
Half an hour later, his spirits had sunk again. There was one aspect of animal rearing he had failed to take fully into consideration. The cost.
"You need a minimum of one acre for a sheep," www.mintsauce. co.uk had informed him. Well, that was a downer for a start. Even the optimistic estate agents details hadn't managed to expand the strip at the back of Number 2 to more than four hundred square feet. An acre would have to be rented. Cost, already, and that was before you'd even got to the animals. "Pedigree lambs cost around £50 for a ewe to £90 for a ram…" Mark whistled softly under his breath. "Three sheep is a good minimum. Additional costs include sheep minerals, shearing, vaccinations, plus, when the time comes, £20 to 25 to slaughter and butcher a sheep. Vet's visits cost around £30 a time, or £70 for an emergency call…" "Bloody hell," muttered Mark. He hadn't realized sheep were a luxury sport.
Chickens, then. Surely they couldn't involve that much outlay, as it were? According to www.cockadoodledoo.co.uk, you'd be looking at £6 to 10 per bird—that was more like it. "Costs also include £300 to 400 for a henhouse, food and drink dispensers, fencing against the fox, poultry mash or pellets, shavings…"
Next Mark had tried goats. "Goats get lonely so you need a minimum of two," said www.billythekidxo.uk. "Goats need a waterproof, insulated, and partitioned goat shed plus antiterroriststrength fencing. Cost around £200 to 500 to include hay racks, milking equipment tools, and winter coats. Annual costs £300 to
350 a year for two."
Finally, desperately, he tried bees. Surely they would be cheaper? The discovery that a new hive cost a cool £200 and a nucleus of bees £100 seemed to argue otherwise. Even his next great idea—catching some out of the air—became less than feasible when it emerged that the necessary protective clothing was £80. There was, Mark realized glumly, no such thing as a free bee. Despite what everyone said about journalists getting lots of them.
Costs like these, Mark knew, were out of the question. He and Rosie simply didn't have the money. Yet the editor wanted animals and animals he would have to have. In which case, the paper would have to pay for them. Mark sent off an email and girded his loins for the reply.
"You must be bloody joking," shot back the editor. "When I want to blow that much money I'll take up polo."
***
Mark groaned. The morning was turning out to be a nightmare. The concussion incident had been bad enough, but there had also been the visit from the postman. Duffy had breezed in reciting the contents of two red bills and with the news that some film star in the village was planning a lavish party.
"Film star?" exclaimed Mark, his celebrity sensors out on stalks and outraged at the thought that someone famous lived in the village and hadn't personally come round and introduced themselves.
"Everyone who's anyone in the village is going." Duffy twisted the knife in the wound. "She's even asked Matt Locke."
"Matt Locke?" wailed Mark. The fact that he had tried and failed to find any story whatsoever concerning the reclusive celebrity was a secret source of anguish. A Matt Locke quote or anecdote would have lifted "Green-er Pastures" into the stratosphere. Neither, however, had been forthcoming, and Mark dreaded the day the editor discovered a famous pop star lived within a hundred-mile radius of Eight Mile Bottom, let alone eight minutes outside it.
"Not that he's sent his reply card back yet," Duffy added.
"Who is this woman giving the party?" Mark demanded.
"She's called Samantha Grabster."
"Never heard of her. Still," Mark said with the air of one who knew all about these things, "I expect she has a different stage name."
Mark sat staring at the door for several minutes after the postman's departure, grinding his teeth with agitation. "If anyone who's bloody anyone is going, why the hell hasn't she asked me? Doesn't she realize I work for a sodding newspaper? Doesn't she know who I am?"
***
Rosie, walking slowly up the lane to Spitewinter, was also reflecting on a miserable morning. She was guiltily aware that, much as she needed to get on with the book drawings, the real reason she had left the cottage so early was to get away from Mark again. Any resemblance between the charming, handsome, witty companion she had shared the London flat with and the carping tyrant with whom she now found herself sharing a collapsing cottage seemed purely coincidental. Their sex life, once so satisfying, was history, as were the days when he spoke to her with anything approaching politeness.
"Where's the bloody milk?" he had demanded that morning, violently rearranging the contents of the fridge.
"We don't have any." Rosie sighed, the image of Jack and the feeding bottle springing suddenly to mind. "Honestly, don't you think it would be easier if we got it delivered?"
Mark's refusal to have the milk delivered was meant to be an economy measure, but resulted only in rows about whose turn it was to go to the village shop to buy more. Worse than this, though, was his recent ban on visits to the Barley Mow.
"But why?" demanded Rosie.
"Waste of money. Not to mention dull."
"Dull?" Conversation at the Barley Mow had struck Rosie several times as being far more amusing than that at London dinner parties. The story about Mrs. Vile, the legs, the hole in the fence, and the outside toilet still made her smile, as did Alan's rendition, performed on a more recent visit, of his ill-fated attempts to learn watchmending, parachuting, and ballroom dancing at evening classes. "I'd been paired up with the butcher's wife," Alan had said. "We're both supposed to be doing the quickstep but she starts to rhumba. So she trips me up in a rugby tackle, we both fall over, and I've got me hand trapped under her bust. Her husband runs over and says, 'Oy, what do you think you're bloody doing with me wife?'"
"Dull," Mark had replied conclusively. "Do you think I've got time to sit around in pubs listening to people going on about ferrets, ballroom dancing, and inventing hen-racing competitions? I've got a column to write, in case you've forgotten. I need to think of material."
"Milk deliveries," persisted Rosie, "would save you time and be more convenient." And hopefully put you in a better temper as well, she added silently.
Mark looked at her suspiciously. "What, not getting enough of that sodding farmer even though you're seeing him every afternoon?" he snapped. "Want him round here every morning rattling his bottles as well, do you?"
"Don't exaggerate. It hasn't been every afternoon."
Yet now, as she lifted the gate to the farmyard, Rosie admitted to herself that Mark had a point. Perhaps she was getting fitter, Rosie thought, but the walk to the farm s
eemed more enjoyable all the time. Furthermore, A Ewe in New York was progressing at an astonishing pace. She had made a couple of visits since the first, none of which had revealed any female inhabitant of Spitewinter beyond the dairy cows. Rosie was intrigued by this, and by the fact that Jack, rather than being out in the fields, was always in the farmyard when she arrived. It was almost as if he was waiting, expecting her, although he was careful always to look surprised when she appeared through the gate.
Today, though, there was no sign of him. Confused by how disappointed she felt, Rosie started a systematic search of the outbuildings. He must be here somewhere.
"Round the back of the house," called the low, gravelly voice, accompanied by Kate's familiar bark. Rosie walked quickly down a narrow, mossy alley along the side of the farmhouse to find Jack in the paved yard, bent before a chicken coop.
As he looked up and smiled at her, her heart lurched unexpectedly. "Come over here and meet Wellington. She's a champion bird."
