Simply Divine (36 page)

'Don't worry, it's only ceremonial,' said Piers, following the direction of her eyes. Jane wasn't sure how reassuring that was. After all, the Druids had held some pretty gory ceremonies. 'This is Merlin, my right hand man.' Piers waved a tattooed hand at the brown-cloaked figure.

Merlin bowed gravely. 'Good morrow, fair maiden,' he boomed.

Tally looked astonished.

'And this is Laughter,' said Piers, drawing to his side a hostile-looking girl clutching a baby. 'Merlin's wife. But the baby belongs to us all. Concepts of fatherhood are so limited and bourgeois. Not to mention,' Piers added, grinning, 'the fact no one really knows who the father is.'

Laughter looked thunderous.

'So what's been going on here?' Piers asked, waving towards the film set. 'I heard there was some strange dude around ordering everyone off the rights of way, which is

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why I thought I'd pop over. But I didn't realise it was Steven Spielberg.'

'It's not,' said Tally. 'Oh, don't ask.' She clutched her hair with her fingers and rolled her eyes. She took a deep breath. 'The film set is, or at least it was, an attempt to bring some money in to keep Mullions going. It seemed a better idea than Mummy's, which was to sell up.' Briefly, Tally filled Piers in on the events of the past few weeks.

Piers took the news, even the episodes concerning Saul and the bulldozers, with his impressive sang-froid. 'The Red Indian guy sounds pretty cool,' he remarked. 'Shame I missed him. And I wouldn't have minded meeting this Saul cat either. Merlin could have given him a good seeing to with Excalibur. Couldn't you, Merl?' Beside him, Merlin grinned, exposing blackened teeth in his beard. 'So what are you going to do now?' he asked his sister. 'Want to see what the crystals have to say about it?' He rattled a bag which hung at his belt. 'They're very wise.'

Tally tried not to shudder. 'Er, thanks, but no, I'll be fine,' she said nervously. Til just get back to the drawing board. Think up some more business ideas. More films, perhaps.'

'What about a rock festival,' suggested Laughter, looking almost enthusiastic. 'Like Glastonbury. It'd be brilliant. You could have floating stages in the lake.'

Tally's eyes bulged. 'Well, I
was
perhaps wondering about a few classical music concerts,' she faltered.

Piers grinned round at his companions. 'Well, if we're not needed here, we'd better get back to the runway,' he remarked to the assembled troops. 'We could catch that earth-healing ceremony at Avebury on the way back.' i

'What? You're going already?' stammered Tally. 'Wouldn't you, er, like some tea?'

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'No thanks,' grinned Piers, clapping her on the back. 'So many green belts, so little time. I'm at Gatwick if you need me. When you next need someone to throw themselves in front of a bulldozer, don't hesitate to get in touch.'

As she watched Tally once again launch herself on her brother, Jane saw something move out of the corner of her eye. She looked round to see another, smaller and altogether different procession snaking across the parkland in white vans, bearing what looked like satellite dishes and aerials. A cameraman and soundman, whose equipment sported the livery of the local news station, were already moving in on Piers, while a gaggle of other lens-laden and boom-microphone-waving types were swiftly approaching. Piers, Jane realised, must be rather well known. Famous, even, by the looks of it. On the outskirts of the crowd, young men and women with notebooks, obviously from local papers, were earnestly scribbling down vox pops. One unfortunate, whose career as a journalist Jane suspected might be shortlived, had hit upon Merlin as an interviewee.

'What can you tell us about today's protest, Muddy?' a grey-anoraked news reporter asked Piers eagerly, thrusting a fat black-tipped microphone at him.

'It's cool,' Piers replied, not batting an eyebrow stud at all the attention. 'It's over, in fact. We're heading back to Gatwick now.'

'Back to the runway protest?' asked the man. 'How's that going, Muddy? You've been down there quite some time now, haven't you?'

'Two months,' said Piers. 'And we're not giving up. We'll be down there for as long as it takes.' He turned to his followers and thrust a triumphal fist to the sky. They cheered and threw their caps and bells in the air. The stilt-

walker waved a stilt. Piers, Jane realised with surprise, had real charm. He was a figurehead. The shy little schoolboy she remembered had grown up to be a charismatic leader of men.

She wasn't, it seemed, the only one who thought so.

'Filthy's just
so
wonderful, isn't he?' breathed a low, husky voice at Piers's side. The interviewer blanched and extended his shaking microphone to the stunning, pouting blonde in tight leather trousers who had suddenly appeared in the crowd and was snaking her slender arm round Piers's shoulders.

'Filthy, my hero,' simpered Champagne, grinning at the cameras as she ran a perfectly-manicured fingernail over his much-pierced countenance. 'Such a
stud,
isn't he?' she pouted into the lens. Piers looked astonished but not horrified. Beneath the dirt on his face, Jane swore he was blushing. Laughter, meanwhile, looked livid.

'Champagne D'Vyne, isn't it?' said the reporter, jostling with about ten others who had suddenly zoomed in, in every sense of the word, on the unexpected drama that was unfolding. 'The famous It Girl?'

'That's right,' breathed Champagne in her best Sugar Kane tones. 'At least, it
was.
But not any more. I've always
been fascinated by
preservation and conservation. I'm very keen on recycling.' She paused. 'I
always
get the maid to take my champagne magnums to the bottle bank.' She shot the bearded reporter a glance so sizzling you could have fried sausages on it, then grinned and ran a hand through her gleaming hair. As the movement rucked up her blouse to reveal an expanse of brown tummy, Champagne was rewarded with her favourite sound, a fanfare of whirrs and flashes from the cameramen.

'Who
cares
about films, parties and premieres,' pouted

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Champagne passionately, running a finger up and down Piers's mud-encrusted sleeve, when there are so much more
important
things like runway protests going on?' She tickled Piers under the chin with an alabaster finger. He looked both shy and delighted. 'From now on, I'm giving up the high life for life underground,' Champagne announced in ringing tones. 'I'm joining Filthy and his intrepid band. From this moment on, I'm no longer an It Girl. I'm a Grit Girl.'

There was a gasp from the reporters, the crowd and Jane most of all. 'Terrific,' shouted one of the newsmen. 'Britain's favourite party girl joins Britain's favourite environmental protester. Who would have thought it?'

Who indeed, thought Jane sardonically, watching Champagne, in her element once more as she held court to the TV cameras. Joining Piers and his band of high-profile crusties was, of course, a heaven-sent, if not heaven-scented, self-publicity opportunity. No self-respecting narcissist could pass it up. Particularly one like Champagne, whose latest venture, the film, had ended rather less gloriously than she had anticipated.

'Yah, I know Swampy really well,' Champagne boomed into a phalanx of microphones.
'Such
a sweet guy. I was on
Shooting Stars with
him once . . .' She had totally stolen Piers's thunder, Jane noticed. Not that he seemed to mind. He was gazing at Champagne with all the helpless fascination of a rabbit caught in the headlights. Which, Jane thought, probably wasn't all that far from the truth.

As soon as the interviews were over, the TV van raced away across the parkland in order to be first back in the studio with the great exclusive. Behind it, the young reporters, newsroom-bound, ran for their cars and careers.

Left alone at last, Piers's crowd began to pick up its

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bags, shoulder its children and get back on its stilts, ready for departure. Piers gave a thumbs-up sign to Tally by way of farewell.

Champagne did not so much as look at Jane as she tottered away, clinging like a limpet to the latest person to save her career. As Jane accompanied Tally up the steps to the house, she had the rare feeling of being able to predict the future with absolute accuracy. Give or take an adjective, she knew exactly what was going to be on the front pages of the tabloids next day.

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'What exactly
is
an integral, double-aspect utility room?' asked Tally several hours later, looking up at Jane and frowning. Sunk in a leather armchair so battered it could have been served with chips, she was looking wearily through the papers that had fallen from Mark Stackable's folder as he ran after Saul. 'Integral. Double aspect. It sounds rather philosophical,' Tally added.

'I think it's a sort of lean-to scullery with two windows,' said Jane. All those weekends trailing around flats with Nick had left her better versed than Tally in the argot of estate agents.

Tally gave another deep sigh. 'I just can't believe I was so stupid as to have been taken in by Saul.'

'Well, he's very charming,' Jane said heroically, even though she had never found him anything of the sort.

Tally nodded, grateful for the excuse.

'And you can't choose who you fall in love with,' added Jane. As I know only too well.'

'Yes, but Nick was
ghastly,'
said Tally, displaying none of Jane's diplomacy.

I wasn't thinking of
him,
thought Jane. She fell silent and gazed into the fireplace.

'Now I'm back to square one,' said Tally. 'I have to find

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a way to keep this place going.' Her despairing gaze took in the whole of the chilly, peeling, rotting, collapsing, ageing gloom of the Blue Drawing Room. She slapped the palms of her long hands down on the worn armrests of her chair.

'Well, we'll just have to think of a thriving business idea,' Jane said briskly, pouring herself another tot from the rapidly-diminishing bottle of Bowmore that Tally had discovered in one of the kitchen cupboards along with a litre of gin and a bottle of flat tonic. Mrs Ormondroyd, it turned out, had squirrelled away quite a stash. 'I know what I'd like to do. Not that it's much use to you.'

'What?' asked Tally, holding her glass out to Jane and rustling in a bag of stale peanuts which constituted the rest of the treasure trove from under the butler's sink.

'I want,' said Jane, raising her eyes to the mould-spotted and peeling ceiling, 'to set up a company that records the omnibus edition of
The Archers
for people who miss it on Sunday mornings. You know, people who are away, or on holiday, or forget that the clock's turned back or forward or whatever, or it's Armistice Day.'

'Yes. That's a brilliant idea,' said Tally, sitting up. 'Because if you miss the omnibus, you lose the plot for about the next six months. And then your life has no meaning.'

'Exactly,' said Jane. 'My company would provide a solution to that sad fate. And I know what I'd call it as well.
Ambridge Too Far.
Like
A Bridge Too Far'

Tally grinned. 'But it won't make a million/ she said. 'Not unless you branch out into recording
EastEnders
and
Coronation Street
for people as well.'

'No chance,' said Jane. 'I can't work a video.'

'I wonder what I could do,' mused Tally, pushing one

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