Page 73 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘What’s that shade called – glittery dead frog?’ I asked, and she gave me one of her uncertain looks.
‘Mum was going to come with me, but she had one of her migraines so she took a pill and went to lie down. She’s out of it for hours when she’s like that.’
So … that seemed to dispose of my main suspect for the stone rolling, and I couldn’t somehow see Little Miss Sparkly Nails risking her talons on it, even if she wanted to squash Carey flat, which I was very sure she didn’t. Or at least, not like that.
‘It was very odd the way the stone ball simply rolled off just at that moment, don’t you think? I could see you’d been behind the gatepost, to have a look.’
She stared at me with her round, pale-blue eyes. ‘How – I mean, I—’
‘You left your heel prints in the ground. I haven’t seen anyone else wearing stilettos round here.’
‘I was curious when Dad told me, so I did have a look,’ she said, then added, slightly pityingly, ‘Do youhaveto wear those big, ugly Doc Marten boots?’
‘I like them, and also they protect my feet while I’m working. Doyoualways wear stilettos so high they make the veins and tendons on your feet stand out like bunches of old ropes?’
‘They do not!’ she gasped indignantly.
‘I’ve often noticed it with women who wear really high heels all the time.’
She squinted down at her feet, but they probably looked OK from that angle. ‘I think you’ve got a strange sense of humour,’ she said icily, and went to hang around the men. I could hear her gushing with girlish enthusiasm to Carey about how exciting the whole Mossby renovation project sounded and how she’d love to help whenever she was staying at the Lodge.
‘Of course, I’ve got to keep my hands nice, because I sometimes get hand modelling assignments for catalogues,’ she added, which seemed to rule out anything other than a decorative role in the proceedings.
The men finished loading the first gate and then finally took their mugs of tea, though from politeness, I think, rather than because they really wanted them. There wasn’t a run on the custard creams. I spotted Carey surreptitiously tipping his tea out on to the grass verge a couple of minutes later.
When the second gate was in the van, Ben and Andy produced cans of Coke and sat on the open tailgate for a breather, while Carey and Rufus batted off up the drive in the golf buggy to look at the Victorian statuary in the outbuildings.
Vicky, abandoned, gave up and went back to the Lodge looking disgruntled. Not long after the front door had slammed behind her, Rufus rang one of the boys to ask them to take the van up to the stable block. It looked as if he was interested in some of the things Carey had found in the outbuildings, at least.
I had a little walk along the lane, then turned up a track marked Moel Farm, which eventually brought me back to the gap where the back gates had been. The alpacas were looking over the wall again, but they didn’t spit. In fact, they just looked amiable and inquisitive.
Carey was in the kitchen, brewing a pot of strong coffee, which he said he hoped would take the taste of Vicky’s disgusting tea away.
‘What on earth do you think she did to it to make it taste that awful?’
‘At a guess, put one teabag in a large cold pot, poured not quite boiling water over it, and then filled the cups before it had brewed,’ I suggested. ‘Was Rufus interested in some of the things in the outbuildings, then?’
I’d had a quick look at the statues myself and they were all ghastly:simpering naked maidens, holding wisps of material over their faces, or coyly looking down and sideways, as if suddenly aware they’d forgotten to put their clothes on. One of them was sitting nude and blindfold on a ball, which was a fairly weird idea.
‘Rufus wanted all the statues and he took about a mile of cable-edged terracotta garden edging tiles, too. He knows someone who’d probably make me a good offer for the old carriage and he’d buy the trap himself, but I’m thinking about that. There are all sorts of old gardening tools and wheelbarrows and stuff that I haven’t had a chance to sort properly, but when I do, I’ll give him first refusal on any I decide to part with.’
‘Those gates looked worse once you’d got them down, so I hope his assistant really does like scrubbing rust off things.’
‘According to Rufus, she can hardly wait to get her hands on them. And we’ve done a deal, so cleaning the gates isn’t going to cost me much … if anything.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ I said. ‘Who were those two nice boys, by the way?’
‘Benbows from the Summit Alpine Nursery – cousins of Lulu, I think. They are really interested in what I’m planning for Mossby and they’re going to come down and help out whenever they have a bit of free time. They both work in the nursery with their dad. It’s a surprisingly big affair and they send alpine plants all over the country.’
Already I could see that Carey was doing his usual thing of attracting people, like a magnet pulling in iron filings. Only Vicky might be a bit of a dud, unless she could scrape paint and sand wood with her tongue, seeing she had to keep her hands nice for modelling.
On my way out to my car to get all the painting and cleaning materials I needed for Saturday, Ella passed me, heading for the Elizabethan wing. Her face looked like an angry, bitter mask carved from granite and she cut me dead. I don’t know whatI’ddone to deserve that?
On Friday, the day of the big spring clean, the usual team of cleaners had been augmented to the point where you couldn’t turn round anywhere in the house without finding a young man up a ladder dusting light fittings or a sprightly grey-haired lady steam-cleaning bathroom tiles.
The specialists who handled historic house cleaning were a marriedmiddle-aged couple called Mitch and Jenny, and I showed them round the old wing because Carey was in the studio, about to do a telephone interview with a women’s magazine. A photographer had arrived and was waiting to take the pictures for it when he’d finished, so I hoped there would be one clean and unoccupied room in the main house they could use for background by then.
Carey’s agent had set up the interview, having learned of the new documentary and become enthused … or perhaps he was trying to redeem himself for not spotting the small print in Carey’s previous contract. At any rate, there was also talk of a Sunday supplement spread.
