Farm Fatale

by Wendy Holden

  Panicking, Mark looked at his watch. Half-past two; there'd be time, if he moved quickly enough, to get down to the newspaper offices and sort things out before the editor swept off in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes for the evening. It was, after all, easy to sack someone when you couldn't see them. Even the editor might think twice about it in the flesh. In the unlikely event that he had meant it.

  It wasn't until he was on the train that he remembered he hadn't left a note for Rosie. Still, it would do her good to wonder where he was for a change. She was definitely taking him for granted these days.

  ***

  Rosie did not miss him immediately. Party clothes were her most pressing agenda. On her return from the farm, she went straight to Mrs. Womersley's to see if what Jack had promised in any way translated into reality.

  Jack had phoned ahead, and Mrs. Womersley seemed not just eager but determined to help. Wondering what she had let herself in for, Rosie followed the old lady up her gloomy staircase, followed by the riotous noise of Mr. Womersley's radio.

  As Mrs. Womersley pulled back the sliding door of her teak wardrobe with a veined and liver-spotted hand, even the poor light of a seventeenth-century cottage bedroom as the afternoon drew to a close could not quite dim the glory of what lay within.

  "Incredible." Rosie was entranced. It looked, she thought, like the fashion cupboard of a glossy magazine before a haute sixties' shoot. From beneath sheaths of clear plastic peeped pastel pinks, bright blues, and shimmering silvers. Jewel-colored sweeps of crushed velvet were suspended over serried ranks of high-heeled shoes. Hats, boas, and bags of all descriptions were piled on the shelves.

  "Haven't got anything Arabian Nighty, mind," Mrs. Womersley said. "Not much call for it in Eight Mile Bottom. It's more flannelette nighties round here."

  "I'm sure it doesn't matter. Anything partyish will do." Rosie's eyes were glued to the glittering and intensely partyish row of dresses.

  "This would suit you." Mrs. Womersley pulled out a soft tweed two-piece so utterly Jackie Kennedy that Rosie longed to try it on and feel the beautifully lined fabric brush coolly over her back and encase her in vintage First Lady elegance.

  "But it's an evening do, isn't it?" Mrs. Womersley whisked the suit back out of her reach. Sliding her papery arm into the wardrobe again, she brought out a plastic sleeve encasing a slim black dress.

  Rosie looked at it doubtfully. An LBD. Elegant, undoubtedly. But unforgiving. You needed a body as hard as Barbie's to get away with that sort of thing.

  Mrs. Womersley was back in the wardrobe, shoving aside shoes, boxes, and bags in her quest.

  "How about this then?" She removed the clear plastic sarcophagus surrounding something tailored and white.

  Rosie's eyes shone as Mrs. Womersley held up a beautiful white suit with wide lapels. "Fantastic. Pure Bianca Jagger."

  Mrs. Womersley looked surprised. "You're right there," she said. "Made this for Marilyn, the butcher's daughter, after she married Mick Jagger. After Bianca Jagger did, that is," she added hastily. "Marilyn married a chimney liner from Cobchester. Never wore this though. Couldn't fit into it. Too many pork pies, I told her. Should fit you though, easily. You don't look like you eat many pork pies."

  "No, I don't."

  "Nice, though, a pie is. With mushy peas or a bit of mustard."

  Rosie shuddered, recalling the violent vermilion of the pies at the Silent Lady. Not actually wanting to remember anything more about the Silent Lady, she looked longingly at the St. Tropez wedding outfit suspended from the padded hanger.

  "Go on, try it," urged Mrs. Womersley. Rosie hesitated, then shrugged off her fleece. Remembering too late her graying bra, she comforted herself with the thought of Mrs. Womersley's Harvest Festivals stretched out above the chimney breast. Besides, in this light, everything looked gray.

  Except the suit. Rosie shuddered as the cold silk lining made contact with her back and gasped as it pressed against her front. Climbing into the skirt, she sent up a silent prayer of relief as the zip whizzed unhindered to the waistband to enclose her hips in a perfect fit. She buttoned the jacket, straightened her shoulders, and grinned at Mrs. Womersley. "How does it look? Shame I haven't got dark hair."

  "Its not a shame at all," said Mrs. Womersley. "You look very nice, you do. A sight better than Marilyn Sidebottom ever would have done in it, pork pies or no pork pies."

  Rosie padded across in bare feet to the long mirror that gleamed darkly in the corner. Even given the stone in weight that a narrow mirror shaves off one's reflection, she had to admit she looked good. The fitted curves of the jacket drew in gently to the waist; the skirt fell in a generous column to what seemed impossibly tiny ankles. Suddenly, she looked as if she'd stepped straight from a glossy magazine shoot rather than, as Mark said she usually did, the set of This Old House.

  Even her hair, uncut for many months and mulched down into an unmanageable mass of blond curls, looked right. Shining intensely in the limited light, it framed what had become her small and delicate face before spilling wildly and glamorously over the suit's razor-sharp shoulders as if she had spent five minutes curling each strand. Even her breasts looked good; studying the long V-shaped slash of flesh diving uninterrupted from her clavicle to her navel, Rosie felt a rare gratitude for their tininess. It wasn't the sort of suit you wore a bra with. Perhaps that was where Marilyn Sidebottom had gone wrong.

  "Can I really borrow it?"

  "Course you can, dear." Mrs. Womersley beamed. "I'm glad to help. It's a treat having you next door. You've done wonders with that garden."

  Eyes sparkling, Rosie stared back at her reflection. "It looks so incredibly modern. I could probably go into Gucci this minute and buy something exactly the same."

  Mrs. Womersley's smile faded slightly. "Is that what you think?" she said, shoving both hands in her apron pockets. "I must say, I quite liked the early Gucci designs, but I'm not at all sure I approve of the way it's gone post-Tom."

  ***

  "Must have caught on something in the delivery van," Duffy said, handing over the battered cardboard box to Samantha. Through its jagged apertures, a quantity of chiffoned sequin was clearly visible.

  "There's some fancy stuff in there and no mistake," the postman added as Samantha slammed the front door of The Bottoms in his face. "I'd be careful of those glittery knickers though," he added through the letterbox. "Look a bit scratchy, they do."

  Samantha turned her back and began to rip the box open— farther open, that is, than Duffy already had done.

  She was seething. The range of requested Arabian Nights outfits had arrived from the Covent Garden theatrical hire firm only just in time. The party was a mere twenty-four hours away.

  "Scheherazade," spat Samantha, reading the label attached to the costume on top, a white silk bikini glittering with sequins and accompanied by swathes of white chiffon. "Why the hell have they sent me something called that?" she demanded of an empty hall. "What is Scheherazade? Is it like lemonade or something? Bugger," she added, panic-stricken. "Should I have gotten Sholto to put it on the menu?"

  Guy, who had been snatching a few minutes' rest on the daybed in the sitting room, wandered reluctantly through. It was impossible to sleep in any case, the chaise longue's floral print being louder than a crowd of football fans.

  "Scheherazade," he explained wearily, "was the woman who told one thousand and one stories in the Arabian Nights. I think her husband was going to kill her otherwise." He resisted the temptation to add that he knew exactly how her husband felt. The party was driving him close to the edge. Or, to be more specific, Samantha was. Her behavior was becoming worse by the day—by the minute, in fact. As long as he lived, which given his current levels of stress would not be long, he would never forget the Trainer incident.

  Guy winced at the memory. After another disturbed night in which he could have sworn some vast black soccer ball had bounced repeatedly round the inside of the canopy, he had come leaden-eyed into the morning sunshin
e to find Samantha attacking one of the workmen about, of all things, his footwear.

  "Just look at them. They're a disgrace," she had been yelling, pointing at the ragged piece of dirty leather flapping over the gaping hole along the inside of her victim's right foot. "Can't you buy some new ones?"

  The workman shook his head. "Can't afford it," he had mumbled. "I've got four kids and the work's not regular."

  Poor sod, Guy had thought. Sholto clearly kept his staff on a rein as tight as his own trousers. An idea had occurred to him and he had shuffled back inside the house.

  "Here," he had said, reemerging and shoving the wad of notes from the bottom drawer of his study at his wife. "I'm sure this will be useful," he added to the workman, whose face lit up with delight.

  "Brilliant idea, darling," Samantha had cried, taking the wad and snapping the elastic band off the notes. "There," she had said, extending her hand to the workman.

  He had looked at it bemused.

  "Go on," Samantha had urged, waggling the elastic band between her fingers. "Take it. Put it round your shoe. It'll hold it together for the rest of the day at least."

  Guy, slipping the workman another wad once Samantha had stormed off, had felt guilty at not having taken her on immediately. He had wanted to but feared his heart would not survive the encounter. If only Iseult were here to give her a piece of her mind. Guy longed more than ever for the company of his daughter. He had still not found her letters. Possibly, however, that was a good thing; given that their general thrust had been "Don't marry Samantha, Daddy, she's a bitch and she'll make you unhappy," they would be salt in his wounds. He had been keeping a close ear on the phone, but Iseult seemed not to have called again. Did she think that he didn't want to speak to her and had stopped trying?

  "What about this?" Samantha's voice dragged him back into the present and the party. Abandoning Scheherazade on the grounds that not only was it unpronounceable but also because the gold rivets in the knickers looked as if they might chafe, she had scooped up a pale pink nylon and gold ensemble so overwhelming in its decoration that, Guy thought, it could have practically gone to the party by itself. "It's got some initials in it," she said excitedly. "J.·S. Who's J. S.?" She paused before exclaiming, "Jean Simmons. Of course. She must have worn this in, um, er…"

  "Spartacus?" suggested Guy.

  "Spartacus!" Samantha pressed the costume to her bosom in rapture. "I've got Jean Simmons's costume from Spartacus."

  "Or Joan Sims's from Carry On Up the Khyber," said Guy nastily.

  Samantha came out of her trance immediately. The proportions of the costume were, admittedly, more matronly than one might have thought necessary to cover the lissome form of Kirk Douglas's love interest. She scowled ferociously and tossed the costume on the floor. "That leaves Cleopatra." Samantha grabbed a glittering magenta silk two-piece complete with gold turban out of the box.

  "Didn't realize Cleopatra went in for turbans," said Guy.

  "Course she did," snapped Samantha. "She was the Joan Collins of her day, wasn't she? Now, what are you going to wear?"

  Guy conveniently remembered his reservations about the festive food and disappeared. Samantha looked furiously after him as he fled, muttering something about checking with Consuela that the waitresses would have plenty of sausage. In particular, that one he'd picked up in Cinder Lane.

  ***

  The following afternoon, anyone driving from Eight Mile Bottom along the Slapton road would have noticed a sharply handsome but bleary-looking man with tousled blond hair walking shakily after the bus that was heading to the village from the railway station. The bus driver had swerved violently, brakes screeching, into every bend between Cobchester and Eight Mile Bottom, and Mark, his stomach finally unable to bear any more, had gotten off to walk the last stretch.

  His trip to the capital had not been a success. Unless, that was, you were coming from the point of view of one of the landlords in whose establishments Mark had blown the rest of his month's money. The rest of his money period.

  His head pounded and from time to time his legs buckled beneath him. But if going out drinking with former newspaper colleagues the night before had not been a good idea, crashing out on the production editor's sofa had been less advisable still. His back ached agonizingly and someone seemed to have been standing on his neck all night. Worst of all, nothing whatsoever had been achieved. The editor had refused even to see him, let alone reinstate him.

  Mark now recognized that giving up his job to write a damned countryside column had been a disaster. But was it his fault there was nothing to bloody write about in the sticks? Was it his idea, even? No. The inspiration for the whole bloody shooting match had been Rosie. No wonder he'd never been able to get it to work. Whatever the editor might have said—quite forcibly—to the contrary, Mark knew that it was distance from the paper rather than inadequate copy from himself that had been to blame for his downfall. It would never have happened had he remained in the capital and not disappeared to the middle of nowhere on some stupid whim of Rosie's. Because, make no mistake about it, moving to the countryside in the first place had been her great idea.

  With Herculean effort, Mark managed to prevent himself from throwing up on the grass verge. This small success cheered him. He raised his drooping head. Hell, he was still a writer, wasn't he? They couldn't take that away from him. His thoughts flew to Samantha, the first woman he'd met in ages who had appreciated him. She was in films, wasn't she? Maybe they could collaborate. Do a screenplay or something. He'd always fancied a screenwriting Oscar. The British Matt Damon. He could write; she could star. She was supposed to be famous—she was bound to have connections. As another sweep of nausea threatened to overwhelm him, Mark closed his eyes and saw Academy Awards loom out of the rushing red. He should get over there now and start the ball rolling. Not to mention the cameras.

  "Hey, there. Excuse me."

  Mark turned. A thin, dark-haired girl was standing behind him. He registered her lank, uncombed hair, long tie-dye skirt, and an arrangement on her upper torso consisting of about three separate thin-strapped black tank tops and a cardigan apparently made of cobwebs. There was a stud through her nose, a ring through her mouth, and another in her navel. Remembering Dungarees' collection of facial metalware, Mark felt the tension rising. No doubt she was in search of the Cinder Lane commune.

  "What?" he snapped.

  The girl smoothed back her hair and grinned at him. "I'm looking for some joint called—"

  "Over there." Mark jabbed a finger in the direction of the church. Even from this distance he could see the rotting row of clapped-out vehicles collapsed against the church yard wall.

  "Cool." The girl raised a pencil-thin eyebrow. Her bruisedlooking mouth turned slightly upward. "You psychic or something? How did you know what I was going to ask you?"

  Psychic. Sodding hippies, Mark fulminated silently. Full of spiritual crap, all of them. She'd be asking him if he fancied a bloody Indian head-massage next. He continued gesturing at the Muzzles's cottage.

  The girl took a step nearer and peered in the direction of the church. "So The Bottoms is over there, is it?"

  "The Bottoms?" Mark looked at her in amazement. "Are you sure that's where you're going?" The pits, surely, was nearer the mark.

  "Sure, I'm sure." She had, he noticed, eyes of an exceptionally clear blue. Her voice, too, for all the California drawl, had a firm undertone of Chelsea, and not the Stamford Bridge terraces at that. If she was a hippie, Mark realized, she was a smart one. It wasn't impossible she was a friend of Samantha's. Samantha. Oh, God. The party. He'd almost forgotten, what with the trip to London, the film plans, and the rest of it. He'd better get over there now. They'd have an hour to discuss Operation Oscar, as he had already christened the project, if he went straightaway.

  "So you're here for the party, are you?" he asked the girl as casually as he was capable.

  "Party?" She looked blank for a minute. Then light seemed to dawn.
"Oh…yeah. Sure. I'm here for the party."

  "Know Samantha, do you?" One of her thespian friends perhaps. That would explain the scatty bit. She looked like one of those alternative actress types, the sort that banged on about kabbalah and drank their own pee.

  "Yeah, I know her."

  "She's a great friend of mine," enthused Mark. "Wonderful woman. Amazing."

  "Completely amazing. Like, far-out amazing," agreed the girl. Mark wasn't entirely sure what to make of her tone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The evening of the party had finally arrived. In the master suite of The Bottoms, Samantha was squeezing Cleopatra's satin magenta skirt over her hips and reflecting furiously on Guy's absolute refusal to try Faisal, Aladdin, or any other of the costumes she had, at great effort and expense, called in for him. To make matters worse, the familiar front doorbell chime of "Greensleeves" had just resounded through the hall. A glance at the ormolu clock, whose face was so heavily decorated that it took several minutes to make out what the actual time was, confirmed Samantha's suspicions that if this was a party guest, they were hours early. Still, what could be expected from yokels?