Party Games (19 page)

‘I haven’t seen you,’ Catherine laughed.

She topped up with a pint at the cider stall and decided to stay and watch the band. The four sweating middle-aged men in too-tight rock T-shirts were massacring ‘Paint It Black’ when a familiar hand dropped on her shoulder.

‘Hey.’ It was John. He’d caught the sun on his face, making the green eyes even more potent.

‘Hey. Look, I’m sorry about earlier.’

‘Forget it,’ he said simply. ‘I have.’

They watched Jonty flailing round the dance floor. He let out an enormous burp and a bit of sick came out, dribbling down his treble chin.

‘What a fucking disgrace!’ Catherine couldn’t stop herself thundering. ‘We’ve all been working our arses off for this, and Jonty has done sod all. I hate it when people don’t do their job properly. Jonty should have the backs of the people in this town! You know what, when I was editing I may have made mistakes along the way but I always had my team’s back, John.
Always
.’

John prodded her playfully. ‘Is someone a bit drunk?’

‘What, so now I’m not even allowed a drink any more?’

‘Cath, I was joking. Jesus! I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with you.’

‘Well, guess what, I don’t even know myself!’ she shot back.

‘Look.’ He stopped and checked himself. ‘I know you’re still upset about not being pregnant.’

‘Why does this have to be about me getting pregnant? There are other things going on in my life!’

‘If I’m doing something wrong,’ he said quietly, ‘then you’d better tell me.’

The booze made her angry and confused. ‘That’s just the problem! You don’t do anything wrong. It’s hard work being married to Mr Bloody Wonderful.’

He looked at her in disbelief. ‘Let me get this right. You don’t want me to treat you well? You want me to start acting like a complete bastard, Cath, is that it? Be a selfish, egotistical shit who goes out and sleeps with other women?’

It killed her to hear him speak like that, but Catherine just clammed up. How could she tell John that everything he did for her, every act of love and selflessness, only made her feel more inadequate?

Her eyes burnt with helpless tears. ‘I’m going to get a drink,’ she said.

‘Do what you bloody want,’ he told her.

The bearded lead singer blew into his microphone. ‘We’re taking things down a bit, with the legendary Amy Winehouse. This is for all you couples going through a bad patch.’ He looked dark. ‘Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.’

On stage the opening chords of ‘Love is a Losing Game’ spluttered out.

By seven o’ clock in the evening, the High Street resembled a Saturday night out in a major city centre. The Prosecco tent had run dry hours ago, so everyone had packed into a heaving Bar 47. Customers were six deep at the bar as they lined up to do flaming sambucas.

Over on the memorial green, the animals were getting restless. ‘Shall we call it a day?’ Fleur turned to Ben and caught him staring at her boobs for the umpteenth time that day.

‘Er, yeah,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll go and get the lorry.’

She was still red with embarrassment when Pete from Pete’s Pets rushed over. ‘One of the bloody snakes has escaped!’

‘Shit! Is it poisonous?’

‘Only if you step on it. Oh, Jesus, I’ll never find it.’

There was an almighty whining sound and what sounded like three gunshots. A trail of stars fell down from the sky.

‘Which stupid sod is letting off fireworks?’ Pete said. ‘People could get seriously hurt!’

Fleur had barely recovered before another rocket went up, exploding above them with a massive bang.

‘Bloody hell!’ she shouted. ‘The animals!’

It was too late. Terrified by the noise, the cow bolted straight through the flimsy wooden railings. It thundered up the High Street, closely followed by the pigs and both lambs. The menagerie scattered revellers and stalls in their wake.

‘Stop them!’ screamed Pete.

The animals started looping the market square, joined by someone’s Labrador and a confused drunk man who kept shouting, ‘Is this a race, then?’

People were running all over the place in utter panic. ‘Somebody do something!’ Ginny screamed. ‘They’re going to kill somebody!’

Catherine came running out of Bar 47 and took off up a side street, not really knowing what she was doing. Charging round a corner, she ran full pelt into a couple. Olympia Belcher was down on her knees, in front of a spotty youth from the boys’ school.

‘Shit!’ Catherine yelled.

Olympia leapt up. ‘Shit!’ she whimpered. Catherine gaped at her and the Harry Styles lookalike, nonchalantly tucking away his pubescent appendage.

‘Don’t tell Mummy, she’ll seriously kill me!’ Olympia pleaded.

Catherine was speechless. ‘Olympia,’ she started. There was more screaming up ahead.

‘Fuck me,’ the boy said. ‘There’s, like, a massive cow heading straight for us!’

They heard the scrape of hooves and wild grunting. Half a ton of prime Cotswolds beef was thundering
down the passageway straight for them.

‘I am out of here,’ the boy said, taking off like a whippet.

‘Move it, Olympia!’ Catherine shrieked.

‘I can’t run without my sports bra!’

Catherine grabbed the girl’s arm. ‘What’s worse, a pair of black eyes or being trampled to death?’

Back on the High Street it was bedlam. Two lambs and a pig came flying out of a side passage, hotly pursued by Mr Patel. They took off for another lap round the market square.

‘Stop chasing the animals everyone!’ Fleur screamed. ‘You’re frightening them!’

One of the lambs was sniffing round the collapsed cheese stall. She ran over and retrieved it, pushing it quickly into the trailer. Where was Ben?

There was a fresh commotion further up. The organic meatball van was rolling down the street with no one behind the wheel. A young guy was running after it, shouting about the handbrake. It quickly started to gain speed. Fleur watched an elderly gentleman rugby tackle his wife out of the way.

‘MOVE!’ people shouted, but her feet were glued to the spot. She stared transfixed at the windscreen.

I’m going to die
, she thought dazedly.

People were yelling at her, real fear in their voices. At the last moment she snapped out of her trance. The bumper was inches away. It was too late …

She suddenly felt herself being pushed out of the road. The van hurtled past with inches to spare, crashing to a halt into a lamp post.

‘Are you OK?’ a deep voice asked. She stared dumbly
at her rescuer. It was that big dark man from earlier, the one with Catherine Connor.

‘That was incredible!’ A photographer was waving his camera at them. ‘Can I get a pic of the two of you together?’

‘Fleur!’ A frantic Ginny Chamberlain rushed up. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’ With that, Fleur closed her eyes and quietly fainted.

She came round to a sea of anxious faces and Ginny Chamberlain dabbing her brow with a damp cloth. She was half-carried by John Connor to sit down in the nearest chair. Someone rushed out from Bar 47 with a glass of mineral water and a lime slice bobbing in it, and placed it in her hand.

‘I’ll go and ring Robert,’ she heard Felix say.

‘No!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t call my dad!’

Felix and Ginny exchanged a look.

‘I’m OK, really,’ Fleur said, struggling to sit up.

‘My dear, you’re shaking like a leaf!’ Ginny exclaimed. ‘We should really get someone to have a look at you.’

‘Why don’t we just let Fleur sit here for a few minutes until she feels better?’ Felix suggested. He gave her a reassuring wink.

Everything was gradually brought under control. The rest of the animals were caught with the help of the Gloucestershire constabulary and a group of off-duty vets. The young guy running the meatball van was interviewed by a police officer about his dodgy handbrake.

‘It’s just had its MOT,’ he kept saying inconsolably. ‘It’s never happened before.’

Catherine, who’d been watching her husband being swamped by journalists and women with sunburnt chests for the last fifteen minutes, couldn’t help butting in. ‘Have you found who let off the fireworks yet?’

‘Kids, having high jinks probably,’ one of the policemen said sagely. ‘We’ll hunt the little sods down.’

‘What if it wasn’t kids?’ she asked. ‘What if someone let them off deliberately?’

‘What are you saying, madam?’

Catherine saw Felix coming over. ‘Felix! What if Sid Sykes is behind all this?’

His silver eyebrows shot up. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘It’s just a bit strange, isn’t it, how he turns up and then all this happens?’ She swallowed a wine burp. ‘What if he planned all this, to deflect attention from the Charity Game Show? I remember watching a Channel 5 film about something similar once. You know, the one with John Travolta …’

The police officer interrupted. ‘You’re saying, madam, that Sid Sykes let off fireworks to sabotage the event?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying!’

‘Madam, have you been drinking?’

‘Yes, but I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.’

‘Catherine, that’s a very serious allegation to make,’ Felix said. ‘Sykes is long gone. How on earth can he have had a hand in it?’

‘I don’t know. I just know there’s something fishy about this whole thing! Who has fireworks in June?’

‘Have you met Catherine Connor, our famous magazine editor?’ Felix asked the policeman.

‘Magazine editor, eh? That would explain the wild imagination.’

Peace restored, there was only one thing for it. Most people piled back into Bar 47 to start drinking heavily again.

After reassuring Ginny she was fine to drive home, Fleur said goodbye to Ben. Screams of laughter burst out of the pub while a purple-pink sunset lounged languorously in the sky above.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Ben asked again.

‘I told you, I’m fine,’ Fleur snapped. She watched his face drop and immediately felt guilty.

‘Sorry, Ben. I’m just a bit tired. I’ll see you back at the farm.’

The streets were beginning to empty of revellers as she trudged her way back to the Land Rover. As she passed one of the back lanes two respectable-looking men peered out at her from a swirl of smoke.

The fatter one waved a glowing joint at her. ‘Fancy a drag, gorgeous? This is some really good shit.’

‘No thanks,’ Fleur sighed. ‘My life’s shit enough as it is.’

The old vehicle took three attempts to start. She still felt shaky and probably shouldn’t drive in her state, but there was no way she was letting anyone take her home. Her dad’s drinking was getting worse. Last night she’d come in from doing the animals to find her dad passed out, half in and half out of the kitchen door.

The Land Rover chugged up the back streets of
Beeversham and headed out towards the darkened fields. With every second Fleur felt like she was leaving civilization to go back to the stale dregs of her life. She was still mortified that she’d fainted in front of all those people. Her worst fear was that they thought she’d been drunk, just like her dad.

She was on the main road home before she remembered the fridge was empty. She was too tired to go back into town. Cereal it was, then, for the third night running.

‘Bran Flakes or Weetabix?’ she said out loud. ‘Sod it, Fleur, why don’t you push the boat out and go for the organic granola.’

She rounded the bend, overcome with hysterical laughter at how crap her life was. ‘Organic … granola,’ she spluttered. The smile froze on her face. Up ahead a horribly familiar Ford pickup was in the ditch, headlights still blazing. She jammed her foot on the brake. The Land Rover did a terrifying swerve, but she barely noticed.

‘Dad!’

Her dad’s eyes were closed. His face was ghastly with slick red blood. ‘Dad!’ Fleur wept. ‘Oh God!’

She stood up and screamed futilely into the night. ‘Someone help me! Please!’

She started running back to the truck. Halfway there she remembered her phone was dead.
Shit shit shit
. What did she do now? She couldn’t drive off and leave him.

At that moment, she had never felt more alone and frightened. ‘Please, someone drive past!’ she cried. As if by a miracle a pair of headlights appeared further up the road, whooshing along at a terrific speed.

She ran into the middle of the road waving frantically. ‘STOP!’

She was momentarily blinded by the glare of the headlights. The screech of tyres ripped through the air. A low, wide bonnet came to a stop, inches from her knee, so close she could feel the heat from the engine. How could she nearly get run over twice in one night?

Hysterical, she ran round to the driver’s window.

‘Please help!’ she screamed. ‘There’s been an accident!’

The window slid down. A pair of brilliant blue eyes glared at her. ‘Are you trying to fucking kill both of us?’ Beau Rainford exploded.

She gaped in horror.
Not him, of all people!
In vain she searched up the road for another car. ‘My dad. H-he’s been in an accident …’

‘Have you called an ambulance?’ he demanded, pulling his seat belt off.

‘M-my phone’s dead,’ she stammered, but Beau was already out of the car and taking off on long legs. By the time she caught up he was kneeling close to her dad’s face, listening intently.

‘Is he alive?’ she wailed. ‘Oh my God!’

‘He’s breathing,’ Beau said. He spoke to her dad. ‘Can you move?’

Robert Blackwater gave a stricken moan.

A red Clio Fleur didn’t recognize pulled up behind them. The driver’s window slid down. ‘Do you want me to call an ambulance?’ the woman called.

Fleur froze. The whisky fumes coming off her dad were overpowering. He would be arrested for drink-driving. He might even go to prison. They were going to lose everything.

Helplessly, she waited for Beau to land them in it. They’d played right into his hands.

‘We’re fine, thank you,’ he told the woman calmly. ‘The ambulance is on its way.’

It was all a complete blur after that. Somehow Beau had got Robert up and into his car. Fleur had followed the
Mustang back to the farm in her own vehicle, hands frozen on the wheel. Between them, they’d got Robert up the stairs and into his bedroom. Fleur remembered shaking uncontrollably as Beau asked her questions she couldn’t answer.