Page 65 of Hit For Six
Lola wasn’t sure how she connected foot with floor as she picked her way back down the red-carpeted hallway, her world shattered into a million irreparable pieces. How was she supposed to sit straight-backed at the long gathering of guests and pretend everything was fine?
She could just imagine Monty catching her eye as he walked back to the table from the opposite direction. ‘You okay?’ he would mouth, waiting to receive Lola’s beam of a smile before winking and blowing her a kiss. She knew there and then that she couldn’t fake it.
The light was fading, which was perfect in some ways but not so ideal in others. Lola looked over her shoulder to check nobody was watching, then took her chance and ran out the front door, cutting across the fountain and its parking circle, snapping a kitten heel and removing her footwear to sprint down the drive as fast as her legs would carry her.
‘Fuck!’ she cried, sensing the blisters forming already.
She wanted to add a larger and louder ‘fuck my life!’ to this but she needed to remain incognito. Switching her brain back into gear and defecting to the soft grass that fringed the hard concrete, Lola jogged alongside the red maple trees until the mammoth gates swung into view. And then she wondered how the hell she was going to scale them. But just at that moment she heard a car pulling up outside and a pair of shoes tramping about on the ground as its owner tackled the keypad embedded in the waterfall of ivy, eventually locating a buzzer. The gate slowly opened to reveal the bonnet of a shiny yellow Audi. Lola hung back behind a tree trunk, wishing it were wider, sucking in her stomach.
Thankfully, she knew that the gates were slow to close too. Once the custard monstrosity was on the drive, she’d furtively come out of hiding and slip through them undetected, although this horror of a house no doubt had undercover cameras everywhere. Monty would be out of his mind with worry soon– if not already– but Lola couldn’t stay in this world where she was surplus to requirement. Gingerly, she peeped around the trunk as the tyres met the tarmac, heart in her mouth as she took in the profile of the driver.
‘Woop! Let’s get this party started!’ she heard his alarmingly familiar voice declare before the car tore up the driveway.
A stunned Lola took a deep breath, unable to process what she’d just witnessed. She sped to the gates, before limping on to the main road, where it soon became clear that she had two choices; neither particularly thrilling. She could foolishly flag down a lift back to Bath and hope that she’d been shat on enough for one day; that the driver wouldn’t turn out to be an axe murderer. Or she could walk until she came across a welcoming cottage, crossing her fingers that it wasn’t the modern day version of the Hansel and Gretel honeytrap. She imagined Squiffy’s heartfelt miaows as she padded around the kitchen in search of food and opted for the former, sticking out her thumb and holding her breath.
Lola’s hairdresser, it soon transpired, was the fairy godfather of the highway as well as the salon. Monty could keep his versions, who hadn’t even raised a bushy eyebrow during their wine-fuelled debates at the table, oblivious to the poor singer’s fate. Her panic momentarily subsided when the sugar-purple Snippet’s branded VW Beetle pulled up next to her in the layby and Joaquín hopped out.
‘Madre mia!Lola, I thought you were a ghost in that dress. What are you doing in the middle of nowhere?’ he screeched. ‘Get in the car. And if you’re going to pull this stunt on meagain, I suggest you wear something fluorescent next time. Let’s get you home. You can explain yourself en route and I’ll tell you about my ownnoche de mierda: rescuing one of my Upper Badminton client’s hair-dos. Would you believe it? They left the salon this afternoon with a glorious blonde tousled mane and two hours later it had turned a wiry Smurf blue. There’s something in the air in these posh villages, I tell you.’
‘Yes,’ muttered Lola, as she attempted to buckle her seatbelt with trembling hands and fathom out why she couldn’t keep nice things in her life. ‘I think you might be right.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Monty
‘Has anyone seenLola?’ Monty asked as he traversed the lawn and headed back to the feasting.
He guessed she was using the merry interlude as the perfect excuse to take a cloakroom break but his concern was already starting to mount. What if someone had let their facade slip and turned into a pompous prick while she was on her own when he was helping resurrect the gazebo? The singer and his friends were now knocking back the vino having decided to take a break on Godfather number three’s instruction. Monty didn’t fancy their chances of getting a future booking from Mother Hen.
‘Nevermind that,’ Frederick interjected, not quite able to look Monty in the eye. ‘We’ve got a new and fashionably late but completely excused arrival in our midst. Monty, I’d like you to meet our Digital Marketing Director, Jules… and Jules, this is my son Monty. He’ll be taking over the empire one fine day, if both of you play your cards right.’
Frederick looked pointedly at Monty now, oblivious to the fact that his recent letter hadn’t changed a thing; that Lola was his world and no amount of money or properties would change this. Monty squinted at his replacement. Wait a second: was this the same toad who Lola had worked with, the jerk who’d shown her up in the stadium? He’d been nondescript enough beneath that Panama hat for Monty to notice any distinguishing facial features, especially when Lola had eclipsed the screen with her natural beauty. Monty appraised Jules’ shortly-cropped hair and found not a mullet in sight. The name similarity had tobe a coincidence. Christ, these past few weeks had made him paranoid.
He was about to shake the guy’s hand to welcome him on board and pass on a few office tips when Saskia approached them.
‘Sorry to interrupt, but I need an urgent word with my brother.’
‘Please excuse me,’ said Monty. ‘I’ll catch up with you later.’
‘No probs.’
Jules beamed. Monty owed the guy a lot. He’d never know how much he’d saved his arse. Monty had to hand it to his father, he’d worked impressively quickly to replace him.
‘What is it?’ he asked his sister.
She led them to the sweet-smelling honeysuckle boughs at the front of the house, where they’d forever held their secret meetings. Sas used to pull at the flowers’ stems to get to the style and its little bead of nectar.
‘It’s a disaster! She’s run away, Monty!’ Saskia cried, oblivious to her childhood ritual.
‘Mother?’
‘Not Mummy, you twit. That beautiful girlfriend of yours!’
‘Oh, shit.No!I’ve got to go look for her.’
‘I wanted to tell you sooner but it was impossible.’ Saskia threw her hands about and began pacing manically. ‘I was hiding behind the curtains in the games room when it happened. I got a sinking feeling when I came out of the downstairs cloakroom and spotted Daddy accosting Lola. I can read him like a book, but I knew he’d take her to the games room, not the library.’
‘I’m not being rude, Sas, but could you speed this up any?’ Monty snapped, rolling his hand in the air.
