by Jilly Cooper
‘Cue for smoke,’ yelled Tristan, and a white cloud engulfed the heretics. ‘Excellent, let it clear,’ he shouted, ‘and we’ll go for a take.’
Adjusting his director’s cap to a more military angle, Tristan felt a surge of power as he looked down at the huge crowd. He was a general commanding a mighty army. The landscape shimmered with heat-haze, a hot breeze ruffled the red-tipped barley into flickering flames. He was just shuddering at the thought of Tab’s body being burnt to death when he was roused by a dreadful screaming. And fantasy became reality as the shredded newspaper beneath her stake burst into flames, and flared up around her. For a moment, everyone was motionless with horror. Then, as the screaming grew more terrified, Tristan leapt straight down into the smoke, miraculously landing safely on the stony courtyard.
‘It’s all right, chérie.’
Diving for the rope tying her to the stake, aware of flame caressing his chest, his long fingers somehow managed to untie the knot without fumbling. A moment later he had dragged Tab to safety.
Beating out the flames snaking up her yellow heretic’s robe, feeling no pain except that of frantic worry, he dragged the peer’s robes off a horrified extra and rolled Tab in them. It was over in thirty seconds.
Next moment, Wolfie, who’d been watching from a second-floor window, hurtled into the courtyard, yelling, ‘Is she OK? Get the paramedics, for Christ’s sake.’
The front of Tab’s hair, her long blonde eyelashes and her eyebrows were singed, there was a terrible stench of burning, but she didn’t appear hurt, only dazed and terrified as she collapsed sobbing wildly into Tristan’s arms. As Tristan clutched her to his sweat-drenched shirt, examining her face for burns, kissing her frizzled hair, crooning in rapid French that she mustn’t be frightened, the extras, thinking it was part of the plot, led a round of applause. As he ran into the courtyard, and sized up the situation, Rannaldini’s face was shrivelled into a mask of evil.
‘Who left petrol in that can?’ he screamed. ‘Someone has tried to murder my daughter.’
‘They were all filled with water,’ stammered an aghast Wolfie, ‘I checked them.’
‘Well, heads will roll.’ Everyone retreated as Rannaldini glared round.
Tristan promptly called a wrap for the day. ‘I’m taking Tabitha home.’
‘You can’t,’ muttered an appalled Bernard. ‘All these extras, a full cast, we’ve got hours of light left.’
‘I don’t geeve a fuck. Oscar can take over.’
‘Tabitha will stay at Valhalla. Her mother will look after her,’ snarled Rannaldini, ‘and you can carry on.’
‘No!’ Tab was hysterical. ‘I want to go home with Tristan.’
Even Griselda was roused from her despondency over Hermione’s wrecked dress. ‘I always said those two would end up together,’ she hissed to a boot-faced Alpheus. ‘At least they’re the same class. Here you are, darling.’ She slipped Tab’s short red shift over her head, sliding it down her body as she removed the heretic’s robe. ‘Go home and have a heavenly tryst with triste Tristan, and boo sucks to sodding Rannaldini.’
‘That little madam gets everyone nice,’ said Baby sulkily.
A stricken Lucy fled to her caravan. A stunned Wolfie kept repeating that there had been no petrol in the cans. Rozzy had mindlessly collapsed into Rannaldini’s executive producer’s chair, tears streaking down her face.
‘Tristan could have been killed.’
‘You’re so wet, my dear Rozzy,’ sneered Rannaldini, ‘you could have put the fire out yourself. Clive?’ He clicked his fingers for his shadow, then dropping his voice: ‘Follow the two of them, see what they get up to.’
32
At Magpie Cottage, Sharon the Labrador, singing in delight, welcomed Tristan by bringing him a pair of Tab’s knickers.
‘You sing better than Hermione.’ Tristan stooped to pat her.
Tab laughed, then gave a sob and fled upstairs to examine her naked lashless face in the bathroom mirror. Five minutes later Tristan found her shaking uncontrollably, rubbing toothpaste into her blanched cheeks. He was amazed, then touched when she refused a glass of brandy. ‘I promised God I wouldn’t and He — admittedly helped by you — has just saved my life.’
On the bed, Snoopy gazed up from one of her pillowcases, dinosaurs from the other. Tristan had just persuaded her to lie down on the Peter Rabbit duvet when the doorbell rang.
‘Tell it to go away,’ pleaded Tab. ‘Don’t bang your head on the beam going down.’
It was James Benson, the smooth family doctor who had been summoned to so many Campbell-Black and Rannaldini crises in the past. Agreeing with the paramedics that Tab was unhurt but deeply shocked, he gave her a shot.
‘You’ll be fine, sweetie. You’re a lucky girl. It would have been a tragedy if that lovely face had been spoilt. Where’s your husband?’
‘In Australia. Tristan saved my life. Will you see he’s OK?’
Downstairs James Benson produced some very strong painkillers. ‘You’ve come off worse than she has,’ he said, as he accepted a large brandy. ‘Thank God she’s off the booze, but she’s not in good shape. She was clinically depressed after she lost the baby in March, and she burst into tears when I said I’d seen Rupert last week. I’d give the old bastard a ring — I’m convinced he’s missing her as much as she’s missing him.’
‘It’s all Helen’s fault,’ exploded Tristan. ‘Bloody woman doesn’t give a stuff about Tab.’
‘That’s not fair,’ said James Benson sharply. ‘I first treated Helen when she wasn’t much older than Tab. She was the loveliest thing I ever saw, and sweet too. If she hadn’t been a patient, I’d have made a serious play. Rupert was away when she nearly died having Marcus, he was even more humiliatingly unfaithful to her than Rannaldini, if that’s possible. Between them, they’ve done for her.’
Tristan was amazed by the venom in James’s voice, but Tabitha was his only interest. ‘What about Isa?’
‘Cold fish, corroded with moral outrage against the Campbell-Blacks. He’ll never forgive Tab. Sooner she’s out of this marriage the better.’
Tristan was pacing the room, clearly desperate to be left alone with Tab. Leggy and effortlessly elegant, despite his dusty espadrilles and dirty frayed white shorts, he reminded James of a heart-throb admired by his own generation: Gérard Philippe.
‘I know it’s none of my business,’ he drained his brandy, ‘but she’s very vulnerable.’
Having let the doctor out, Tristan noticed a framed photograph on the desk of Isa smugly riding in the winner of last year’s Gold Cup. Parking his green chewing-gum on his rival’s face, he belted back upstairs.
‘I’m going to make you a cup of tea.’
‘Hot sweet tea!’ mocked Tab. ‘I’d rather have hot sweet Montigny. Please don’t leave me.’
‘I won’t.’
He was touched to see Schiller’s Don Carlos beside Dick Francis on the bedside table.
‘I’m trying to educate myself,’ she muttered.
‘Are you sure you’re not hungry?’
Tab shook her head. ‘Sharon probably is.’
‘I feed her. I give her sheep chops I find in fridge.’
Tab giggled. ‘Flora and Baby call Griselda: Lady Caroline Sheep. I’m sorry I’m holding up your film, but it was so cool you telling Bernard and Rannaldini to fuck off, and leaving three hundred and fifty extras and Dim Hermione all cooling their heels because of me.’
Tristan lay on the bed beside her.
‘Am I squashing you?’
‘Not enough,’ mumbled Tab.
Tristan could feel the faint down of her leg against his. He thought she’d fallen asleep, then her hand crept into his.
‘Are your poor burnt hands agony?’
‘Not when you hold them.’
The smell of wild mint and meadowsweet was drifting in through the window. Outside, wild roses cascaded over dark green trees like a William Morris wallpaper. As Tristan lay up on his si
de he thought he had been caught up in some time warp. Without her lashes and eyebrows and with her extreme pallor and her hairline temporarily singed back an inch, Tab had become a sixteenth-century beauty, Elisabetta, or even Eboli. Her forehead was as white as the moon, her lashless lids like magnolia petals.
James Benson’s painkillers had begun to kick in. Bending back his hand as though he were drying his nails, because his palm was still very sore, Tristan ran the inside of his wrist up the red chiffon dress, feeling the concave belly, the soft swell of breast, only to be halted by a rock-hard nipple.
As he bent over and kissed her, Tab gave a gasp and kissed him back in ecstasy, breathing in a faint tang of Eau Sauvage, and the mint of his chewing-gum, burying her fingers in his thick silky hair, feeling his big bumpy head, so different from Isa’s, which was as narrow as a weasel’s.
‘I have longed for you,’ murmured Tristan, laying his cheek against hers, ‘ever since I saw you at the traffic-lights in Rutminster drinking vodka, Sharon across your thighs instead of a safety-belt. Straight away I want to be safety-belt that protect you,’ he smiled down at the malevolent little eyes and great gnashing teeth on the pillowcase beside her, ‘even from dinosaurs.’
‘The first time I saw you I thought, Jesus! Although it was probably “Jeshush” because I was so pissed. I asked Lucy as she made me up if she’d seen that fantastically gorgeous man downstairs and she laughed and said yes, but I’d have to give all that up now I was getting married.’
‘Did you marry Isa because you were pregnant?’
‘No,’ confessed Tab, gently pulling fragments of singed hair from his chest. ‘I never do anything because I ought to, so I put you on hold until I galloped round the corner and saw you all ogling that naked bitch Chloe. God, I was cross, but ever since then I’ve looked forward more and more to seeing you on the set. It’s as though you’ve got a halo. You’re the only person I notice.’
‘What about Wolfie?’
‘Sweet, but too straight and he doesn’t have a halo.’
Even though Tristan’s hand was stroking its way very slowly down her body, setting her completely adrift, she had to know.
‘Everyone on the unit spends their time speculating about your sex life,’ she said falteringly. ‘A celibate Frenchman is a contradiction in terms. There must be someone.’
Outside a blackbird was singing, a dog barked in the valley. Sharon barked back.
‘Not any more,’ said Tristan, as his hand now crept up slender thighs, honed by years in the saddle.
‘Please wait!’ begged Tab. ‘There isn’t someone like Isa’s girlfriend in Australia, waiting to rear her hideous head in a month or two? I couldn’t handle it.’
‘Hush.’ As he shut her mouth with his, Tristan’s fingers edged under her knicker elastic into the tightest, stickiest hollow. ‘Oh, ma petite.’
Wriggling out of his arms, Tab leapt out of bed. Like a poppy shedding petals, her red dress slithered to the floor.
Tristan had lost enough weight for her to tug off his shorts without unzipping them. Next moment she was on top of him.
‘Venez inside moi, toute sweet.’
Tristan did just that. As he thrust up inside her, he was briefly conscious of a delicious slipperiness, of muscles closing round him like a fist, and Tab moving, fluid as a dancer. Then he trembled violently, cried out and came.
‘Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m so sorry.’ He buried his face in her shoulder. ‘I should have held out. I am weemp, but you are so lovely, I was lost, I am so sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Tab kissed him over and over, her tears soaking his shoulder. ‘It’s so gorgeous to be wanted so much. Isa times it like a race. Conserve the energy, push through the gap.’
‘I love you totally,’ said Tristan, as he slowly returned to earth.
Assuming sex was over for the day, Sharon galumphed into the bedroom, landing between the lovers, and was disappointed to be firmly told by Tristan that it had only just started.
Hazily watching his dark head between her legs, as his long lazily lapping tongue drove her through repeated hoops of ecstasy, Tab was inclined to agree with him. And those lovely endearments he kept murmuring in French. It’s like Sharon being talked to by me, she thought. She doesn’t understand what I’m saying, but she knows, by the tone of my voice, it’s adoring.
‘That was the best sex ever,’ she said, flopping back on to the pillow. Then, terrified it might only be a one-afternoon stand, she glanced sideways, trying to memorize his face for ever, noting the dark brown curls, straighter since the moisture had dried out of the earth, the big, slightly twisted mouth, the sallow complexion, now burnt dark gold, the long slightly snub nose, thick curly eyelashes that would never need mascara, black rings beneath the hollow eyes.
‘When you ’ave finish staring,’ said Tristan acidly, ‘I have first grey hairs at twenty-eight. It is abomination.’
‘You’ve been working too hard.’
‘No, I worry you will never love me. Oh, my angel, what a lovely life we’ll have together.’
Tab froze. ‘D’you mean that?’
‘Absolument.’ Tristan took her hand, tempted to slide off her wedding ring. ‘James Benson wanted me to call your father.’
Fuck, he’d ruined everything!
‘Don’t interfere.’ Tab hissed. ‘It’s nothing to do with James! Christ, why is everyone—?’
‘Not everyone, hush.’ Gradually, he calmed her.
‘I can’t cope if Daddy hangs up on me. I don’t want to lose face.’
‘No-one would want to lose one as beautiful as yours.’ Tristan ran a finger down her cheek.
‘Am I really beautiful?’
‘Oh, my darling, you are also genius,’ he added lovingly. ‘I never had horses more better organized on a shoot.’
‘Will you tell Isa?’ Tab sat up in excitement. ‘He thinks I’m a total failure.’
‘Isa’s over.’
‘I know I go on about him,’ confessed Tab, ‘but he’s tougher to kick than the booze. I don’t love him but him having this other woman hurt almost more than losing the baby.’
‘My poor darling.’ Tristan kissed her forehead, then her Greek nose and then her luscious, loving mouth. ‘We will have lots of kids. But I will always adore you the most.’
Kissing his fingers, tasting traces of herself, Tab examined his signet ring. On it was engraved a snake coiled round a column.
‘I can’t read the motto.’
‘Basically it say, “Don’t disturb the Montigny snake, or he’ll come and get you.” He can see off a Black Cobra any day.’
Having taken Sharon for a run, Tristan left Tab, when she was nearly falling asleep. He had missed a half-day’s filming, and had several hours’ work to do.
‘Come back later,’ begged Tab.
‘If you promise not to wake up.’
Suddenly thunder rumbled round the valley like a roused guard dog.
‘Poor James, he’ll be terrified,’ said Tab.
‘Poor Lucy.’ Tristan thought of her anguished, disintegrating face in the canteen.
Outside the front door, white rose petals snowed down on them. As he kissed her goodbye he felt his soul, like those of the heretics, being drawn up to heaven.
Bats flitted across a rising yellow moon, as he floated back to Valhalla trying to keep the silly grin off his face. Overhead, proud and defiant, strode the constellation of Hercules. As Tabitha loved him, he could dispatch thirteen hundred labours. Suddenly he was singing, ‘I am Carlos, and I love you, yes, I love you,’ at the top of his voice. He was so happy he walked straight under a ladder.
On his bed lay a fax of his interview with The Times. He had been very taken by and had got mildly tight over lunch with Valerie Grove, who’d written it. She had described him as the complete Prince Charmant, with naturally aristocratic good manners and a haircut that could only have come from Paris.
Tristan smiled. He must show Lucy that bit.
&nbs
p; The piece mentioned his ‘close friendship’ with Claudine Lauzerte, and said that the word on the street about The Lily in the Valley was that it would be both smash hit and artistic triumph.
‘Is This the Greatest Montigny of Them All?’ said the headline. Below was a big picture of himself. Flanking it were smaller pictures of Étienne, and Tristan’s older brothers, including an incredibly rare snapshot of Laurent, who had looked so like Che Guevara.
‘One reason I make Don Carlos’, Tristan was quoted as saying, ‘was my brother Laurent die twenty-eight years ago, blown up in Chad fighting injustice, like Posa. His death broke my father’s heart. I wanted to give him my own memorial.’
Étienne would have gone ballistic at the mention of Laurent. Tristan hoped the crescendo-ing of thunder wasn’t his father smashing furniture in heaven.
But it seemed a lovely piece. Perhaps he was being too harsh on the press in Don Carlos. They weren’t all bad apples like Beattie Johnson. But his head was too full of Tabitha.
He wished his mother, who had been only two years younger than Tab when she died, was alive to celebrate with him. Idly he switched on his machine.
‘Dearest boy.’ It was Rannaldini at his most silken. ‘However late you get in, pop down to my watch-tower. We must talk.’
Bloody hell, thought Tristan, as he pulled on a pair of jeans. He hoped Rannaldini wasn’t going to be insanely jealous.
33
The moon, pale and sinister as Rannaldini, kept vanishing behind fluffy sable cloud. A witch’s trail soared straight through Hercules. A chill breeze ruffled the leaves as Tristan walked through Hangman’s Wood. The stench of decaying wild garlic was stronger than ever.
Rannaldini, waiting in the watch-tower doorway, was wearing a black crew-necked sweater that gave him a vaguely ecclesiastical air.
‘How’s Tab?’ he asked, as he led the way to the glowing red sitting room on the first floor.
‘Very shaken.’
