The Captain and the Cricketer

by Catherine Curzon

  “Maybe I just don’t suit your ‘brand’. Is that what your agent will say?”

  “I’ve got the whole England team and half the BBC here next week, what do you want me to do?” He threw his arms aloft as the phone went off again. “You really think I’m embarrassed by you? Welcome to my world, Fitz. One photo online and the phone doesn’t stop!”

  “Do? What should you do?” Henry came to a halt, the dust skidding up around his feet. “Decide what the hell you want, that’s what you should do. Move in with me, and everyone will know that television’s Captain George is attracted to men. Or, don’t move in, and go on pretending you’re the straightest man on television. And then I’ll know where I stand. I can carry on living all on my tod—I’m used to it! Lucky old me!”

  “That’s it, is it? I either move in or we’re done?”

  In exasperation, Henry dragged his hand through his hair and sighed.

  “That’s not what I said—I’m not giving you an ultimatum. But I want you to think. What sort of future is there for us? Last night, it was you who suggested moving in, and I was so happy at the thought of it! And now, now I can see very clearly that you never would move in, because people would find out. I don’t somehow think in the twenty-first century it would wash, George, would it—oh yeah, me and Henry, we live together in the same house, but we’re just really good mates, it’s not like we’re lovers or anything like that. Don’t raise my hopes and dash them. It’s not fair.”

  “It’s not what you said, but it’s implied. Move in or I stay living on my tod. I’m paying for your lawyer, I’m pulling every string I’ve got, don’t you make out that I don’t care.” He looked down at Jez as the phone rang again, The Beach Boys ringtone ludicrously cheery right now. George pulled it from his pocket and turned it off. “This is too much, all right? I just wanted to come home for the summer!”

  “If you decide to read things into my words that I didn’t even say, then—” Henry shrugged. “What can I do? Of course I’m grateful to you for helping me. Of course I am! What sort of a git would I be if I wasn’t? But that’s it, isn’t it—you were only ever going to come here for the summer. Squeeze what you could out of the village for the furthering of your precious bloody career and sod off again—toot-toot! Move in with me? What a bloody joke! And what a titting idiot I am to have ever believed a word that’s come out of your mouth since the day you turned up here!”

  Henry began to walk away. His hands were shaking and he battled with himself not to cry. He hadn’t meant what he’d said—he hadn’t, not a word of it. But he couldn’t stop, because his heart had shattered and every broken sliver of it hurt.

  Putting his foot on the stile, Henry paused just before he pushed himself over. “Oh, and so you can’t accuse me of taking advantage of you, just so no one thinks I was after your money, I’ll make sure you get every penny back that you’ve spent on the lawyer.” He leaped over the stile and brushed his hands as he began to retreat. “With interest.”

  “I’ve never lied to you and I don’t care about the money.” George’s voice was quiet. “But if that’s what you really think of me—I have to be here for the cricket next week but apart from that, I’ll keep out of your way.”

  He patted Jez’s head and gave a click of his tongue, which urged the horse to walk. With a last glance at Henry, George and Jez turned away and made their way along the lane.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  So that was that, just as George had always suspected it would be one day, because Henry was far too good for the likes of him. Henry wasn’t timid and cowardly, he was brave and proud and he deserved a better man than George Standish-Brookes. A fairy, as his father had angrily raged after another school report mentioning George’s love of dress-up and theater. And that night Major Standish-Brookes had gone to bed and didn’t wake up, and at eight years old, wide-eyed and lanky as the foal he had rescued, George had decided that he would never be a fairy again.

  Because being a fairy had given his father a heart attack.

  It hadn’t, of course, and he knew that now, but when he’d seen that photo online, read the speculation in the press, on social media, he’d felt that same cold chill. What happens now? What happens to boys when people find out that they’re a fairy? He imagined the work falling away, the rejection of the world and the end of everything he had ever worked to achieve yet it seemed to be far from the case. When he finally dared speak to Howard, his agent told him that the phone had been ringing off the hook and Tabs, bless her, was full of similar stories.

  “Hot property, boy-o.” She’d beamed.

  It didn’t matter. He could have the brightest and best career the world had ever known, shelves full of awards and the respect of his peers from now to his dying day, but it meant nothing without Henry. Henry who thought he was a liar, who had looked at him with love this morning then, just an hour later, with bitter disappointment.

  ‘What a bloody idiot I am to have ever believed a word that’s come out of your mouth…’

  Yet they were true. Not scripted or edited, just him, just a George that the rest of the world wasn’t ever allowed to see.

  And I should’ve guessed that he wouldn’t believe me.

  It wasn’t good enough, even though every single word was true. So he had to go, because how could he stay in this tiny village where Henry’s house was just a short stroll away, where everywhere he looked held memories? The cricket pitch, the tree from which he had tumbled, the village hall where they had danced? He couldn’t bear it.

  Back to London, to a place to hide courtesy of Princess Eleanor, the friend who owed him one, to a place for Jez to continue his recuperation and to a place that would give both George and Henry time to forget. He could use the excuse of preparing for next week’s cricket match and the filming, of course, and that was what he intended to do. A week away, a couple of days back in the village to make the program and away they would run again, Jez and George looking for their next adventure.

  “Keep saying it, Standy-Bee, you might start believing it.” George addressed his own reflection, sure that he looked the part of friendly yet formal, a man who wouldn’t be messed with. Henry might not love him and his efforts to sweet talk Steph into leaving his lover alone might not have worked, but he had one last card to play. Ed Belcher loved money and George made plenty of it, so if a quick dip in the pool hadn’t been enough to convince Steph that her husband’s plan should be consigned to the scrap heap, hard cash might be.

  Then he’d be a real hero, wouldn’t he?

  Save the house of the man whose heart you broke and never even tell him you did it? Save the house of the man you’ll always love?

  That would be worth more than any number of BAFTAs.

  * * * *

  Jez was happily munching in his stable when George left the house. George ambled down the path and across the green, toward the towering gates of the Belcher mansion. Perhaps he should have phoned first to check that Ed was there, but that would have given his adversary a warning and he needed Ed to be caught off guard— he would only get one chance at this, after all. George pressed the intercom and waited, composing his cheeriest tones when he heard Steph answer.

  “Hello, Longley Parva Old Hall?”

  “Hey, Steph, it’s George. Is Ed around?”

  “George! He’s gone to London. Won’t be back until lunchtime tomorrow. Did you need to speak to him, or were you,” her voice assumed a theatrical whisper, “wondering if the coast was clear? For a swim, that is.” She attempted a seductive giggle, but only sounded like she was afflicted with hiccups.

  He felt a pang of shame at the memory of their encounter beside the pool. How stupid could one man get? How arrogant to have believed that a bit of a peacock show would convince a woman like Steph to give up the truth behind her husband’s plans for the manor, or even see her telling Ed to leave Henry, his Fitz, to enjoy a peaceful life.

  Just be honest, he told himself. She’s human, after all. />
  “Can you spare me five minutes, Steph?”

  “I can spare you more than that, Georgie!” The gate clanked and she buzzed him in. His heart hammered as he walked up the driveway, his mouth dry with the thought of what was at stake.

  Fitz’s home. The place where Billy and Tobias had been happy with their pets, the place where braver men than him had lived and loved. He arrived at the front door and knocked, the image of the sundial fresh in his mind.

  He heard the click of high heels over marble and the door opened. Steph’s lips were fresh with gloss, her eyelashes heavy with mascara. She stretched her arm up against the doorjamb, her blouse unbuttoned just enough to reveal a hint of cleavage.

  “Come for another dance?”

  Had she seen the speculation online?

  Probably.

  “I’ve come to ask a massive favor,” he admitted. “And hope you’re feeling kind.”

  Steph pouted and lowered her eyelashes. “I can be as kind as you like, Captain George.”

  “Can I come in?” He told himself that she wasn’t attempting to look seductive, that it was just something Steph did. It was easier to believe that, after all, than to speculate about what price she might demand in return for her help, and even George wasn’t so self-confident as to expect that.

  “We’re not going to get very far if you don’t.” She batted her eyelashes at him and gestured inside. “Come on in—there’s some Pinot chilling in my wine fridge.”

  “I’m off back to London tomorrow,” he told her, as though the decision hadn’t been made in the last hour or so. George concentrated instead on the sound of their feet on the marble floor because it was the easiest thing to think about. “Back next week for the return of the LP Single Wicket with the England lads and a brand-new trophy, of course!”

  At the words England lads, Steph’s eyes widened. She kept her gaze on George as she took glasses from the cupboard and brought the wine out of the fridge.

  “The national squad, coming to little old Parvy?”

  “Yeah, most of the village’ve signed up for a go against them. Minimum fiver a punt, all proceeds to the village hall fund!” George smiled, safe in talk of such things. “And it’ll be the backbone of my Christmas doc.”

  Steph grinned at him as she poured the wine. “So are you bringing the cameras up here next week too? Like you said? Because if so, I’ll need to get booked in for a deep-clean. The house, I mean—not me!”

  She tipped her head back and launched into the world’s most grating laugh.

  “Yup, next weekend!” He nodded. “And I haven’t forgotten that we discussed putting the Belchers in the show. That’s really why I’m here, to ask that favor.”

  “Ooooh!” Steph drummed her heels against the marble floor and grinned like a bratty child. “Here’s your wine. Now ask away!”

  “This house business. The problem is, you chaps coming after the manor is going to make you look like the villains of the village.” He pouted a poor you pout. “If you’re really set on dragging Fitz through the courts, there’s no way the Beeb’ll risk putting you front and center, Steph. They’re going to want an assurance that you’ve called off the lawyers.”

  Steph pursed her lips. Her nostrils twitched as if she had detected a bad smell.

  “I can’t—it’s not really my decision to make, George. And after all, the manor does belong to Ed’s family. Henry’s a squatter.”

  “No, no, it doesn’t. And we both know that no court is going to rule in Ed’s favor—he’s counting on bankrupting Fitz before the judge has a chance to sling the case out, Steph, then he can take the house for peanuts.”

  He saw her eyes flash and knew that he had hit the nail right on the head. It was the land, of course, not the house, because there was no way Ed would want the manor. Ed loved all things modern, so whatever his plans were for the manor, George had no doubt that it was down to acreage, the simple matter of land and cash.

  “Now, I don’t know why he’s so desperate to get the place, but it’s Fitz’s home,” George implored. “Tell me how much you want to back off and I’ll pay it. He loves that house, it’ll break his heart if you keep this up.”

  “And you care about that, do you? Breaking his heart?” Steph snorted. The clickity-click of her acrylic nails tapping on the granite worktop sounded like the advance of an army of cockroaches. “All that pissing about last night, dancing with him—a big joke! But it’s all over the news this morning—Captain George’s mystery man. Except he’s not a mystery in Longley Parva, is he? Oh, yes, I can see it now. That’s the only reason you came round here in the first place, tarting about in my pool—for your boyfriend! That hopeless old bore. How long have you two been shagging?”

  It was like a slap in the face, the disgust in her voice, because that was exactly what he had been waiting for. She was the first, but she wouldn’t be the last, and he was going to cut it off now.

  “Shagging?” George laughed, but the revulsion that jolted through him wasn’t for Steph or for Henry, it was for himself. This was how low he got, then? Henry was right—he was a liar after all. “You believe that?”

  ‘Nothing worse than being a fairy, George,’ he heard his father say darkly. ‘Nothing more disgraceful than that.’

  “Remember how long I suffered going out with Henry? That revolting scar on his stomach—and he was dreadful in bed. Never spent any of his money on me. When I saw all those people speculating over a photo of my ex-boyfriend and you together, I suddenly saw it—I’d been taken for an utter fool by a pair of poofters!”

  George stared at her, his mouth opening with what was intended to be a denial, but no sound came out and for a few seconds he was simply there, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. Is this the moment, he dimly wondered, when I stand on the precipice, on the edge of the Rubicon, with the future shrouded before me?

  Is this the moment father prepared me for?

  ‘Nothing worse than a fairy.’

  You’re wrong, Pa, he told himself. Because I’m looking at something far, far worse.

  Who knew the face of hate could be so glamorous?

  “I was stupid enough, Steph, to think that you were basically all right. A bit shallow, ambitious, terrible taste in husbands but essentially decent, and—this is even better—stuck with Ed.” He frowned and cocked his head to one side. “So yeah, I took my shirt off and had a bit of a swim and flashed the skin because I thought it’d make you happy and that you, being decent and nice and caring, would tell your husband, Fitz’s a good bloke, leave him be. Except I was wrong, you’re not basically okay but a bit shallow, you’re just perfectly suited to Ed Belcher.”

  “You have no idea—no idea—what my life is like!” Steph flung her arm out toward him, her nails like talons pointing toward George’s face. “What girl wouldn’t have her head turned by Ed after suffering a pathetic plonker like Henry? Ed has money, connections, he can give a girl the lifestyle. Look at this house, and the pool, look at this tan—this came from a holiday, you know, not out of a bottle! And I tied Ed up by the balls with a prenup, just to make sure that that money, that lifestyle—it’s mine. Forever.”

  Steph’s face flashed with triumph, but her jubilation faded as quickly as it had appeared.

  “But then—I have to live as Ed’s wife. With an ugly child. Ed’s even worse in bed than Henry. And at least Henry pretended to be affectionate. Ed’s not even here half the time. And you come along, ripping off your shirt—what was I to think? Is that your stock in trade, is it, teasing lonely housewives? And what was I to say, about Henry’s bloody rathole of a house? Not just to Ed, but to a man like Randy Cheese, who—”

  A gurgle escaped Steph’s mouth, like a waste disposal unit that was trying to digest a bag of nails. She tried to cover her face with her hands, as if that could hide the name she had just revealed.

  But it was too late.

  Randy Cheese? What the hell does Randy Cheese have to do with any of this? Geor
ge knew the billionaire with the odd oil slick of hair from the media, the whole world did thanks to his reality shows and skyscrapers and steak clubs and mineral water and wives and scandals and— Well, the list never ended. Yet what did a man who lived atop a tower of gold in the center of Manhattan have to do with Longley Parva?

  Something was afoot, and George knew that there was no hope he would get anything further out of Steph Belcher. She had gone white as milk beneath her tan and her eyes were wide as she stared at him.

  “You’re lonely for a reason, Steph,” he told her. “But at least you’re rich, eh?”

  Then he strolled out of the kitchen, his heart hammering in his breast. Hopefully Steph isn’t the type to come at a chap with a carving knife when his back’s turned. His hands were trembling slightly when he pulled open the front door and stepped out into the night. Then he took his phone from his pocket and called Tabitha, praying that she would answer.

  “Well, wow-ee, if it’s not Gorgeous George!” Tabitha laughed down the phone. A background noise of conversation and the clank of cutlery and glasses indicated that she certainly wasn’t alone. “Why the hell are you ringing me when you should be with your hashtag mystery man?”

  “I’m coming to London tomorrow,” he told her. “Eleanor’s sorting a place for me and Jez and before you have a go, I know I’m running away but— Look, you know you always said you know everybody, is that really true?”

  “Yeah, it is—but—” Rustling on the phone, footsteps, the sudden echo of tiles and a creaking door told George that Tabitha had gone somewhere private to take the call. A toilet cubicle, glamorously enough. “Oh, George, what can have happened between you and your dashing vet in less than a day? Everyone’s cooing with delight over that photo of the two of you. It looks like the first dance at a wedding reception!”