Authors: Tilly Bagshawe
Gabe looked away. There wasn’t much he could say to that.
‘Wraggsbottom’s your home,’ Laura went on, once she’d calmed down. ‘I understand that. Once everything’s sorted out, I’ll find somewhere else for me and the children. I want us to try and be civilized about this, for their sakes.’
‘Civilized about what?’ demanded Gabe.
She didn’t answer.
‘Laura, this is crazy. We have to talk.’
‘Go home, Gabe.’ She gave him a pitying look and started walking back to the house.
‘No!’ he shouted after her. ‘I won’t go! Not without the boys. I’ll sleep out here if I have to.’
When she turned back to look at him the pity was gone. It had been replaced by something close to disgust.
‘I’d like to believe that not even you would be that selfish,’ she said. ‘You’ve caused enough pain for one day, Gabriel. Go. Home.’
Back at Wraggsbottom two hours later, Gabe sat down at the kitchen table. The children’s cereal bowls were still there, the day-old Frosties glued to the sides like barnacles on an abandoned ship.
That’s what this house is now
, thought Gabe.
An abandoned ship.
And I’m the captain, left to sink here alone.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, the one-millionth urgent message of the day from someone. Macy, Eddie, Santiago, Channel 5. Everyone had called. Everyone but Laura. Standing up, Gabe walked outside to the pond, drew back his arm and threw the phone as far as he could. It made a satisfying
plop
as it hit the water.
He waited until the ripples had all gone and the pond was still again, like glass. Looking down, he saw his reflection. Laura’s voice rang in his ears.
If you’re looking for someone to blame, I suggest you try the mirror.
For the first time, Gabe started to cry.
James pulled up outside Cranbourne House in a silver Jaguar XJ and turned off the engine. Rain poured down in a solid grey sheet, sluicing the windscreen and pooling on the road in deep, lake-like puddles. The weather suited James’s mood. He sat for a moment, gathering his thoughts, letting the rhythmic pounding of the raindrops soothe him.
God, he was tired. Exhausted. It was a full week since the news had broken about Macy’s night with Gabe Baxter, but tour commitments had meant that James hadn’t been able to fly home until last night. Of course he and Macy had spoken. There had been tears and apologies and dreadful, pain-filled silences. But it was James who’d cut their conversations short. This was not something that could be worked out on a computer screen or over a long-distance telephone line. He needed to see her.
A few reporters had shown up at the airport when he’d landed and asked their inane questions. But the upside to being stuck in Dubai for a week was that by the time James got home the story was lukewarm, if not quite cold. He’d managed to miss the media feeding frenzy that had enveloped Gabe and Macy on their returns to the UK. A small silver lining, but at this point James would take what he could get.
He ran up the path, head down against the rain, and was about to knock when Macy opened the door and pulled him inside.
‘You’re drowned.’
James stood dripping in the hallway. ‘I’m OK.’
‘I’ll get you a towel.’
She ran to the bathroom, returning with a large white bath towel. As she handed it to him, James noticed how pale she was, and how thin. It was nearly a month since he’d seen her in the flesh and she must have lost a stone in that time, far too much on such a tiny frame.
He frowned. ‘You’re not eating.’
Macy shrugged. ‘Stress.’
‘You need to eat.’
He followed her into the sitting room. The fire was lit and crackling cheerfully, but nothing could banish the sadness as they sank onto the sofa together.
‘I still love you,’ said James. This wasn’t the time for small talk, and he was crap at it anyway. ‘I still want to get married.’
Macy looked down miserably at her hands, twisting her engagement ring round and round.
‘I can’t.’ Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘I can’t marry you.’
James took a deep breath. ‘Why not?’
He already knew the answer, but some masochistic part of him needed to hear her say it.
‘Because I’m in love with Gabe.’ Macy looked so utterly devastated when she said this that James found himself instinctively putting his arms around her. His kindness was too much to bear. ‘I’m sorry,’ Macy sobbed. ‘I thought I was over it. I told myself it was just a crush. I wanted to marry you, to make it work. But when I saw him in LA, I knew it was no good.’
‘Does he feel the same way?’ James forced himself to ask.
Macy gave a short, joyless laugh. ‘No. He adores Laura. He’s torn to pieces about what happened. He won’t even take my calls.’
James winced. He did not want to think about Macy calling Gabe. He did not want to think about anything. He wanted to go home, crawl under the duvet and never, ever come out.
He stood up, forcing himself to let her go.
‘I would have been a good husband, you know.’
Macy looked up at him. ‘You still will be. For the right woman.’
‘You
are
the right woman,’ said James, fighting back tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ Macy said again.
There was nothing left to say. She sat and watched, frozen, as he walked away, closing the front door behind him with a soft click.
Violet Charteris flicked back her mane of perfectly blow-dried, honey-blonde hair and pretended to type the minister’s letter. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Milo Wellesley, glued to his computer screen as usual, and found herself irritated and attracted in equal measure.
Why wouldn’t he notice her?
Violet Charteris was used to being noticed. With her pert figure, high cheekbones, pretty green eyes fringed by long, dark lashes and her wide, sensuous mouth, Violet was extremely beautiful. James Garforth, the Home Secretary, had practically fallen over himself to offer her this internship. The fact that she was reading politics at Balliol and that her father was a Tory peer might have helped matters. But Violet knew that she’d been picked above all the other clever girls because she was sexy, and charming, and because Garforth fantasized about taking her to bed, just like all the other male staff at the Home Office.
Except Milo Wellesley. It was just Violet’s luck that the one, properly handsome man in the office, and the only one close to her own age, should also be the only one who didn’t fancy her. In fact it was worse than that. She strongly suspected Milo didn’t even like her. She’d tried flirting with him. She’d tried ignoring him. She’d played the competitive card (some boys liked that), attempting to score points with the Home Secretary at Milo’s expense, staying late and producing beautiful research reports far superior to Milo’s efforts. None of it made a shred of difference. The infuriating boy still came to work every day and looked right through Violet as if she were a ghost.
‘What are you working on?’
She hated herself for asking, but Milo just kept baiting her with his floppy blond hair and his handsome jaw and his permanently averted eyes.
‘Hmm?’
‘I said what are you doing?’ Violet was irritated. ‘There’s no need to be so unsociable, you know. I tell you what
I’m
doing.’
Milo shot her a look that clearly expressed how much he wished she wouldn’t. Pushing down the lid of his laptop, he stood up. ‘I’m going to get a coffee.’
‘Mine’s a skinny latte,’ Violet shouted after him as he left the room, hands thrust deep into his pockets.
Out on Marsham Street, Milo thought again how irksome Violet Charteris was with her constant innuendos and pouting and irrelevant chatter, as if his job were to entertain her. It was March now, over two months since his mother’s overdose, but Violet still kept asking him about his family all the time, and ‘how things were going’. As if they were friends; or as if it were any of her business. She’d been even more unbearable when the tabloid vultures switched their attention from his mother’s insalubrious past to Gabe Baxter’s affair with Macy Johanssen.
‘Oh, come on. Your father produces
Valley Farm
. You
must
know them,’ she goaded him. ‘Don’t be such a prude! Give us the gossip.’
‘I don’t know them,’ Milo told her stiffly. ‘But if I did, I certainly wouldn’t gossip about them. Unlike you, I know the harm it can do.’
He knew he sounded preachy and holier-than-thou, but somehow Violet brought it out of him. It was odd to think that, this time last year, he’d probably have fancied a girl like Violet rotten. But now that he knew Magda, everything was different. The scales had fallen from his eyes and Milo could see Violet Charteris now for the vain, spoiled, entitled little madam that she was.
Perhaps,
it occurred to him,
I hate her so much because she reminds me of how I used to be?
That was an uncomfortable thought. Guiltily, Milo decided to buy Violet a latte. He darted into Starbucks, just as it started to rain again.
Meanwhile, back in the office, Violet found herself alone for once. The minister was in Leeds today, opening a new foundation school. The other two interns, nerdy Mike and dreary Sanjay, had both gone with him; his PA, Helena, was at home with flu.
Seizing the opportunity, Violet hurried over to Milo’s desk and gently lifted the lid of his computer. She was hoping to find some porn, or at least some IMs from a girlfriend she could tease him about. Instead, a long, turgid legal paper popped up. ‘Illegal Immigration and the Path to Citzenship.’ Milo had highlighted a subsection on Poland.
That’s odd
, thought Violet.
Garforth asked all of us to focus on Inner City Policing this month. What’s Milo up to?
She began to scroll down his browser history.
Curiouser and curiouser.
She was so engrossed, she almost didn’t hear the ‘ding’ of the lift arriving at their floor. She only just had time to re-close the computer and run back to her own desk before Milo walked in, looking handsomer than ever with his hair sleek from the rain, like an otter’s.
‘I got you a coffee,’ he said sheepishly, handing Violet a latte.
She smiled, surprised, and took the cup, deliberately brushing her hand against his.
‘Thank you. You’re an angel.’
The wettest March in more than a century had transformed the Swell Valley into a muddy, rain-soaked swamp. All along the banks of the Swell, water meadows sank beneath the deluge. In the villages, floodgates and sandbags provided scant protection against the inexorably rising waters, especially along the valley floor.
The new season of
Valley Farm
was due to start filming in April, but the extreme weather was a problem. Quite apart from the frantic rewriting of scripts (viewers didn’t want to see relentless rain, so there would have to be far more indoor and village action, and less farm life), Gabe had been sucked back into crisis management mode at Wraggsbottom. Up before dawn every day, and outside in downpours until well after dark, he had no time to focus on anything other than trying to salvage his waterlogged crops, repair damage to the property and keep his sheep from being swept away in the floods. Not that he was complaining. Running the farm was exactly the distraction he needed with Laura and the boys gone – relentless, exhausting, and so physically demanding that his body simply shut down at night and forced him to sleep, whether he wanted to or not. The aches in his muscles, the freezing rain on his face, the cuts and bruises on his hands and arms and legs were all a penance that he wanted and needed, gladly exchanging his emotional torment for the life-affirming sting of physical pain.
Still, at some point the show had to go on. Channel 5 were itching to get started, and with the Fox negotiations still on-going, this season was more important than ever. Scandal-hungry viewers were desperate to see how Gabe and Macy would perform on screen together after the one-night stand that had blown apart both of their relationships. The producers had confirmed that both Gabe and Macy were under contract to present the new series, but beyond that there had been a deafening silence. Would the fallout from Eddie Wellesley’s spectacularly imploded political career be a part of this season’s storyline? Would Lady Wellesley dare to show her face after the scandal that had gripped the nation and destroyed her reputation? As soap operas go,
Valley Farm
was becoming hard to beat – and they weren’t even on the air yet.
At the end of the month, Gabe agreed to meet Eddie for lunch at his London club.
‘Ah! There you are. Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you!’ Eddie made his way through Brooks’s dining room, a man in his element, grinning broadly at Gabe. ‘Journey up all right?’
‘Fine, thanks.’ Gabe followed him to the table, feeling utterly out of place in this stuffy room full of posh ex-bankers and retired brigadiers. Thank God he’d worn a jacket and put corduroys on instead of jeans.
‘You look well,’ said Eddie.
Gabe raised an eyebrow. ‘For a politician you’re a terrible liar.’
Eddie guffawed. ‘All right then. You look bloody awful. Have you heard from Laura?’
‘Of course. I speak to the boys every day. Did you know she’s been staying in London, at her godmother’s flat in Fulham?’
‘I did,’ Eddie confirmed. He’d spoken to Laura himself about work a few days ago.
‘It’s crazy,’ said Gabe. ‘She’s enrolled Hugh at the C of E primary at the end of the road.’
Eddie frowned. That wasn’t a good sign.
‘Things are no better between you, then?’
‘Actually they’re worse.’ Gabe sighed heavily. ‘She filed for divorce this morning.’
Eddie looked horrified. ‘No! Oh, Gabe, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it had come to that.’
Poor Gabe looked close to tears. ‘Nor did I. One, drunken one-night stand, and she’s jacking it all in. After ten years and two kids.’ He shook his head. ‘Why the hell did I do it, Eddie?’
‘Because you’re human.’ Eddie took a deep breath. Now seemed as good a time as any to confide in Gabe about his own indiscretion with Macy in LA, on that very first trip to find a co-presenter. Gabe listened, astonished, as Eddie told him the whole story. ‘I was lucky,’ Eddie finished. ‘Annabel never found out. No one did. In fact, you’re the only person who knows, other than Macy and me.’