by Holly Ford
‘Wow, they look — well, they’re so big! Oh, Mum, you shouldn’t have. Enlargements like that cost a fortune.’
‘They look amazing,’ Lizzie finished for her. ‘And I think they were a steal. I’ve got to collect you while I can afford you.’
‘And my portrait of Richard …’ Ella moved onto the other wall, ‘… and Dad.’
Lizzie glanced out at the view. ‘I know it’s not exactly Fulham, but I wanted it to feel a bit like home.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’ Ella bounded over to give her a hug. ‘It’s better than home. If you know what I mean.’
‘Good.’ Lizzie flicked the blonde ponytail back over her daughter’s shoulder. ‘Because it’s here for you whenever you want. This room, this house — they’re yours, too, you know.’
‘I know.’ Ella smiled into Lizzie’s eyes, then let out an enormous yawn.
‘You must be exhausted, darling. Why don’t you have a rest?’
‘You don’t need a hand?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Lizzie said as Ella yawned again. ‘Listen, you don’t have to do that thing for Quentin tomorrow, you know. Do you want me to give him a call?’
‘No, it’s fine. I’ll be awake early anyway. And besides, it’s good—’ Ella stopped herself. ‘Experience.’
‘Money, you mean.’ Lizzie sighed. ‘I’ve told you, darling, I’m happy to help.’
‘I know. And that’s lovely, thank you. I just …’
‘Don’t want me to. I know.’ Ever since she’d moved out of home, Ella had hated taking money from Lizzie or Tom. Sadly, as an aspiring photographer, she didn’t often have much choice. ‘All the great artists had patrons, you know. Raphael, Michelangelo …’
Ella pulled a face. ‘Not their parents, though.’
‘I bet they were in the early days,’ Lizzie told her, quite truthfully. ‘Come on, darling, I’m sure you’ll find a Medici or two of your own in good time, but until you do, you’ll have to let Tom and me sling you the odd quid now and then. It’s not like it’s going to kill us.’ She paused. ‘Besides, I want you to have a holiday while you’re here. Relax.’
‘I don’t think Quentin’s shoot will exactly be drudgery, Mum.’
Remembering Sandro and Vito, Lizzie grinned. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Lizzie?’ Richard’s voice echoed down the hall. ‘Where are you?’
‘In here, Dickie.’
He padded through the doors. ‘Ah, there you are. We’re all waiting for you to pour the pinot.’ Richard glanced around. ‘Bloody hell, Ells, I think you’ve got the best room in the house. Blood’s thicker than water, eh?’ He paused to admire his portrait on the wall.
‘I was just coming, darling.’ Exchanging a glance of amusement with Ella, Lizzie shepherded him out. ‘What do you think, should we decant the pinot?’
She’d barely finished doing so when the phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ she sighed. ‘Dickie, darling, would you pour?’ Picking up the phone, Lizzie walked out onto the terrace. ‘Hello?’
‘Lizzie? Hi,’ came a very pleasant and vaguely familiar man’s voice. ‘It’s Rob Caterham, from Blackpeak.’
‘Rob — of course. Hello.’
‘Look, we were wondering if you and Ella might be free to come over for dinner tomorrow night. We’re having a barbecue.’
‘That’s so kind. We’d love to, but I’m afraid we’ve got rather a houseful ourselves. Richard’s still here, and a couple of other friends are over from London.’
‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise you had company. I hope I’m not interrupting.’
‘Not at all.’ In the background, Lizzie could hear Flavia’s voice shouting instructions.
‘Actually,’ Rob’s voice returned to the receiver, ‘why don’t you bring your friends as well?’
‘Um,’ Lizzie faltered. ‘Are you sure?’
‘The more the merrier.’ She heard a smile creep into his voice. ‘I’m told.’
‘Who was that?’ asked Ella, as Lizzie wandered back inside.
‘Rob Caterham.’ Oh dear. Catching the look on her daughter’s face, Lizzie winced. So she still hadn’t let that go. Please, she prayed, not another grand, unrequited love. It was the one chink in her otherwise-sensible daughter’s armour. Ella didn’t often fall for men, but when she did, she fell hard, and invariably in the wrong direction. Lizzie was still recovering from Sergei, the smouldering Russian ballet director, who was thirty-eight if he were a day and was in love with a dancer called Boris.
‘He was calling to invite us all to a barbecue tomorrow night,’ Lizzie went on, still surreptitiously watching Ella, ‘at Blackpeak.’ She shifted her gaze to her other guests. ‘I told him I’d check and call him back. What do you think? Shall we go?’
‘Blackpeak — that’s Charlotte’s place, isn’t it?’ said Richard, looking, Lizzie thought, just a touch too eager.
‘Yes, Dickie, that’s right.’ She gave him a firm smile. ‘I meant to tell you, Quentin Cooper’s there doing some fashion shoot. He and Amy came in on the same flight as Ella this morning.’
Richard shook his head. ‘Small world.’
‘Yeah, too small,’ said Seb. ‘All this way to see bloody Quentin. Do we have to go?’
‘I think we do,’ said Jules. ‘If only to give poor Amy a break. Twenty-six hours on a plane with that man — can you imagine?’
They all shuddered. The phone rang again. With a grimace, Lizzie picked up.
‘Sorry, Lizzie — it’s Amy.’ She sounded exhausted. ‘I know you’re busy, but Quentin says he needs Ella at nine-thirty sharp. And Flavia says to bring gumboots. Which are wellies, I think.’ Amy’s voice moved away. ‘No, Quentin, shut up — I’m not telling her that.’ She continued, in a lower voice, into the phone, ‘You are coming tomorrow night, aren’t you?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it, darling,’ said Lizzie stoically. ‘Tell Rob and Flavia we’d love to.’
Seb put his head in his hands.
‘A lot of tourists,’ she told him, hanging up, ‘pay to have dinner on a high country station, you know.’
‘Yeah.’ Jules dug him in the ribs. ‘Where’s your spirit of adventure?’
He yawned. ‘I think the baggage handlers left it at Heathrow.’
‘You’ll feel better tomorrow,’ said Richard. ‘The first day’s the worst.’
‘Yes,’ said Seb, ‘I can see it’s hitting you hard. You look like you just got out of a health spa.’
‘I did sleep awfully well last night.’ Nonchalantly, out of view of the others, Richard’s hand ran down Lizzie’s spine, resting in the small of her back. ‘It’s all Lizzie, you know. She’s been looking after me.’
‘Now there’s a change,’ said Jules. She tucked her feet up on the sofa. ‘But you’re forgetting, Seb, the way Richard flies, there was probably a spa on the plane. A masseuse, at the very least. Come on, Dickie, ’fess up — did you get the full treatment?’
Mindful of Ella only metres away, Lizzie sidestepped the downward progress of Richard’s hand, and, escaping to the fridge, brought out the antipasto platter.
It wasn’t that her relationship with Richard, such as it was, was officially secret — Jules had known about it for years. Which probably meant that Seb did, too, though he’d never said anything. Don’t ask, don’t tell. A policy that suited Lizzie down to the ground. But she and Richard sleeping together was a breach of too many things — manners, judgement, Red Lion HR’s code of conduct — to ever show any sign of it in public. And as for Ella … Lizzie shuddered at the thought of trying to explain it to her daughter. The Richard of her naïve youth, the Richard she knew before she met Tom — that she had to get to, one day. But Richard now? There was really no excuse for it.
‘Oh no, just the usual boring stuff,’ Richard was teasing Jules, having vacated the kitchen for a seat next to Ella on the opposite sofa. ‘You know. Hot and cold running Cristal, Frette sheets—’
‘Wanker.’ Smiling, Jules helped herself to more pinot. ‘And I don’t
suppose you even paid for it yourself.’
‘What can I say?’ Richard shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘I never get the chance. They just upgrade me.’
‘The cabin crew get a better look that way,’ sighed Jules. ‘You know they’re all shooting you on their phones while you sleep.’
‘You’re famous, too,’ Seb told her. ‘Why don’t they ever upgrade us?’
‘We’re documentary film-makers, dear. And besides, my face isn’t as pretty as his.’
‘Dearest Jules,’ Richard’s voice dropped into its sexiest purr, ‘that’s not true. You have an infinitely upgradable face. Decidedly first-class.’ He sipped his wine. ‘Seb’s, on the other hand … Well, maybe you should try flying alone next time and see what happens.’
‘I’m lucky they let me on the plane at all,’ laughed Seb.
‘So not true!’ Jules rushed to his aid. ‘That nice steward fancied you no end.’
Lizzie, busy rubbing wild thyme from the vineyard into a leg of lamb, smiled to herself. The only things she’d really missed since she’d left London were evenings like this — good company, the easy banter of old friends. Friends she didn’t have to try with. And how nice it was to see her new house filled with people she loved, to see it being enjoyed. She was so lucky, so very lucky, to have all this.
‘Can we help?’ asked Seb, wandering over to top up Lizzie’s glass.
‘No, I think it’s all under control. You just relax. You’re on holiday.’
‘Yeah,’ he grinned. ‘I’d say I’ve got about twenty-four hours before Jules turns it into a recce. Bloody mobile phones. Whoever put cameras in the things never lived with a director.’
‘You know, I worked with this old war correspondent once,’ said Jules. ‘He said, “You know how you tell if your cameraman’s dead? He stops complaining.”’
‘Harsh,’ replied Seb. ‘I’m wounded, Jules.’
‘See what I mean?’ Jules rolled her eyes at Lizzie.
Some hours later, the cellar dented and the dishes done, Lizzie climbed into her bed at last and lay, for a moment, looking out at the rise of a glorious yellow moon. It had been a vintage night. Her house was full. Her daughter and her three best friends in the world were tucked up in their beds only metres away — the other side of the living room, for a change, not the other side of the planet. But suddenly, for the first time since she’d moved to the vineyard, Lizzie found herself feeling lonely.
What was it she was missing? Richard? Surely not. That would be ridiculous.
Someone to say ‘look at the moon’ to?
Oh, grow up, she told herself firmly, and, turning her back on the moon, buried her head under a pillow.
Chapter FOUR
Ella had set her alarm for seven-fifteen, but she was awake before that. She pulled herself up a little on Lizzie’s down pillows and looked out at the view. The tips of the mountains were glowing red and gold with the rising sun, and the hills below them were purple with shadow. She reached for her phone and checked the time. 06:59. How could it be light already? She was amazed, as she was always amazed, coming out of the darkness of a northern hemisphere winter to this country her mother called home, at the sheer get-up-and-go of the southern sun.
She stretched. It was pointless trying to get back to sleep. Sliding out from her blissfully clean and ironed sheets, Ella padded over the chilly polished-concrete floor to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Inside, she lifted her face to the jet of warm water and then stood under it, watching the light move over the hills until the shower glass misted up and she remembered she was supposed to be conserving water.
Having hurried through the rest of her shower, she arrived at the problem of what she should wear to Quentin’s shoot. Jeans and a T-shirt, obviously. But which ones? Usually, Ella worked in whatever was handy and clean, but today was a little different. Not because Rob Caterham might be there, she reassured the absent Lizzie, that wasn’t it at all, but … well, it was an haute couture shoot. It wouldn’t hurt to make an effort. On the other hand, she did have to work, and God knew what that could involve. Knowing Quentin, it would be a long day, and by the look of that already blazing blue sky it was going to be a hot one. Shorts, then. But not yet. Ella tucked a pair of denim cut-offs into her bag on the off-chance there might be somewhere to change into them later. For the time being, she settled on her stretchiest skinny jeans and a loosely knitted black tee with a deep V-neck that she hoped wouldn’t show the sweat, and topped them off with a dog-tag pendant and vintage army jacket she’d picked up at Camden Market.
All she needed now were gumboots, and in her mother’s neat laundry she found, as promised, a pair of Lizzie’s she could borrow. But sitting next to them was a brand-new pair with a bow attached and a card that read Welcome home. Ella blinked and pressed her hand to her mouth. Oh God, her mascara was going to run.
As quietly as she could, Ella let herself out through the unlocked laundry door and walked across the damp lawn to her mother’s Land Rover, the soles of her new boots leaving dark green dents in the silver grass. Lizzie had eventually conceded that Ella could drive to Blackpeak Station perfectly well by herself, and that if anyone else should have need of a car, they could just take Richard’s rental.
‘Or Ella can take my car if you prefer,’ Richard had said.
‘I’d rather she took mine,’ Lizzie had replied, trying not to look worried.
Ella eased the Land Rover down the gravel drive. A little mist hung above the rows of vines to either side, and rabbits scattered from the verge. She paused at the gate. In her mirrors, the first sharp rays of sun turned the leaves of the grapes on the higher slope to gold, but the valley ahead lay shaded violet and blue. She wound her window down. The only sound was the Land Rover’s chug. She half expected to hear a pin drop.
Coming to the main road, Ella turned onto the seal with a final scatter of stones and put her foot down, enjoying the wide empty sweep of the road through the hills. Ninety minutes later, just as she’d decided she must have missed it and was about to turn back, she sighted an enormous mailbox ahead and, with a sigh of relief, turned in through the gates of Blackpeak Station.
Crikey. Seriously? Ella brought the truck to a halt and stared at the water gushing busily over the boulders ahead. Was she supposed to drive through that? How? Looking down, she considered the Land Rover’s various levers and knobs. God only knew what they did. She took a deep breath. The best way was fast, she decided.
She was glad there was no one around to hear her squeal as the front wheels hit the water. Three seconds later she was through. Resisting the urge to go back and do it again, she pushed on up the slope on the other side of the ford and continued down the seemingly endless road, windscreen wipers working.
At length she could make out a few bits of tin roof and a couple of chimneys poking out of some trees up ahead. As she got closer she saw that the trees were oaks, old ones, standing tall in full summer leaf behind a crumbling drystone wall. How English. The oak wood gave way to rhododendrons and native trees, but Ella could see nothing more of the house until, finally, the road curved away from the cluster of sheds it had seemed to be headed for and passed through a macrocarpa hedge about the height and thickness of Hadrian’s Wall.
Oh my. She stared at the sprawling grey and white villa ahead, part cob, part stone, part weatherboard, its bullnose verandahs festooned with wisteria. It was decidedly un-English.
She jumped at the tap on her window. Oh God, it was Mr Italian Blond from the plane — what had his actual name been? Nick?
‘Morning,’ he smiled, as she lowered the window. ‘It’s Ella, isn’t it? Just park up over there. The others are down on the lawn.’
By the time she got out of the car, Nick had gone. Ella looked around. There was lawn everywhere. Down, wasn’t that what he’d said? In search of a slope, she headed around the side of the house and found herself, sure enough, at the top of a rise. God, the place was a park. There should be a tea kiosk and deckch
airs.
Instead, a helicopter was perched on the grass, doors open and blades idle. Quentin was pacing around it, while Flavia and the models stood off to one side, talking amongst themselves.
‘You’re late,’ Quentin snapped, as Ella walked down.
Ella looked at her watch. It was nine-thirty-five.
‘No, she’s not,’ Amy said, breezing by with a camera case. ‘You’ll be the one holding everybody up if you can’t decide what gear we’re taking.’
‘I told them, I need bloody all of it,’ shouted Quentin.
‘Well you can’t have all of it,’ replied Amy calmly. ‘There isn’t room in the helicopter.’
‘The pilot can make two trips.’
‘No, he can’t.’
Quentin kicked at the lawn. ‘This shoot is a fucking shambles.’
‘Quentin.’ Having loaded the camera case, Amy came back and took him by the shoulders. ‘Leave the lights behind, have a fag, and get in the helicopter. I swear you won’t die. If it crashes, you can fire me.’
Glaring, Quentin reached for his cigarettes and tapped one up into his mouth.
The pilot leaned out of the side door. ‘Don’t even think about lighting that thing till you’re thirty metres away,’ he growled.
‘Quentin hates small aircraft,’ said Amy, as he stomped off, lighter in hand. ‘He’s sure he’s going to die in one.’ She sighed. ‘He might be right. One day I might kill him.’
‘Bellissima!’ Vito shouted over the noise of the chopper as it touched down and the pilot cut the blades.
‘Incredibile,’ Sandro agreed.
Ella, jammed between their broad shoulders in the helicopter’s rear seat, still couldn’t see a thing. She leaned further forward, trying to catch a glimpse of wherever it was they’d got to.
‘Look,’ Vito offered, pushing himself back in the seat as far as he could — which wasn’t much — in an effort to clear the window.
‘Thanks,’ Ella said, leaning over his lap as much as she dared, but it wasn’t until the pilot slid open the door and Vito jumped out that she really got a good look at the Fratelli Sammartino catalogue’s first location.
