The Show: Racy, pacy and very funny!

‘And you don’t?’ asked Macy.

‘Don’t get me wrong. I love it here. But nowhere’s perfect. This is a real community, not a theme park. I think being a farmer gives you a more realistic view of life generally, to be honest.’

‘Is that why you wanted to do the show?’ Macy asked earnestly. ‘To educate people, from a farmer’s perspective?’

Gabe looked confused. ‘No. I’m doing the show to make money. Farming’s bloody hard work for almost no money. This month alone I’ve got to tail and castrate all the lambs, get them ear-notched and tagged, spray the potatoes, do muck-spreading across the whole farm, repair three broken walls and clean out the livestock buildings. I’m knackered just thinking about it. By getting a camera crew to follow me around, I’m already doubling my earnings. And if the show does well and Fast Eddie sells the format overseas, who knows? We might make some real money for a change.’

‘But you aren’t worried about the protests?’ Macy asked. ‘Now that a national newspaper’s involved, couldn’t they shut us down before we begin?’

‘Nah. If anything, it’ll generate some free publicity, while it lasts. But things will calm down, trust me,’ said Gabe. ‘At least, they will if he winds his neck in.’

He turned to glare at Call-me-Bill Clempson, who’d just walked in with a couple of local farmers. Both had been friends of Gabe’s before the furore about Valley Farm broke out.

‘The vicar?’

Gabe nodded bitterly.

‘But he looks so harmless. Like a little vole.’

‘He’s not harmless. He’s a self-righteous dick,’ said Gabe. ‘Zipping around the village in his little red car like bloody Noddy, making me and Laura out to be some sort of landed gentry intent on keeping the peasants down.’ He told Macy about the right-to-roam debacle. ‘The truth is we haven’t got a fucking bean of disposable income. I mean, the house is valuable, but our mortgage is massive and the upkeep costs a bomb. It’s not as if we’re running around buying diamonds and eating sodding caviar.’

Macy decided it was time to change the subject. ‘You know, you’re really good on camera.’

‘D’you think so?’ Gabe’s anger dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. ‘I was shitting bricks, to be honest with you. I’ve never done anything like this before. I couldn’t bear it if I were a total failure and let Laura down.’

‘No chance of that.’ Macy patted his hand across the table. It was quite astonishing how often he mentioned his wife, and how obviously in love with her he was. ‘You’re a natural.’

Just at the moment their hands touched, the vicar appeared at their table, looking both smug and disapproving, as if he’d caught Gabe out at something illicit.

‘Hello Gabriel. Miss Johanssen.’

‘Bugger off, “Bill”,’ said Gabe. ‘We’re trying to have a quiet lunch.’

‘I was only saying hello.’ The vicar blushed. ‘There’s really no need for profanity.’

‘That’s debatable,’ grumbled Gabe.

Macy gave an embarrassed smile. ‘I hear you have a big wedding this weekend, Vicar?’

‘Indeed I do.’ Bill Clempson smiled back. Macy tried not to look shocked by how crooked his teeth were. Then again the British did seem to have a peculiar aversion to visiting the dentist’s office.

‘Shouldn’t you be preparing for it then, instead of making a nuisance of yourself at my farm?’ said Gabe. ‘I’d stick to the day job if I were you, Bill.’

Bill Clempson bristled.

‘Standing up for my parishioners is my day job.’

‘Yeah, well. The Cranleys won’t be best pleased if you fluff the “I do’s”.’

‘I don’t work for the Cranleys,’ Call-me-Bill replied sanctimoniously. ‘I work for God. Nor do I care in the least what wealthy and powerful people might think of me.’

‘Unless their name happens to be David Carlyle,’ Gabe shot back. ‘I saw you blowing smoke up his arse earlier.’

‘Gabe!’ Macy looked horrified.

‘Not very dignified for a man of the cloth,’ said Gabe.

‘Now look here—’ the vicar began angrily.

‘No, you look here!’ Before Macy knew what was happening, Gabe was on his feet. Picking the vicar up by the lapels, like a ventriloquist manhandling his dummy, Gabe pinned him against the wall.

‘You know nothing about this village, Clempson. Nothing! You’re upsetting my wife and you’re upsetting my children. So I suggest you crawl back under whatever rock you came out from, before I crush you like the pathetic little insect that you are.’

‘If you care so much about your wife’s feelings,’ Bill Clempson stammered, ‘perhaps you should reconsider how you choose to spend your lunch hours, Mr Baxter.’ He looked meaningfully at Macy. ‘Instead of lashing out at others.’

The insinuation was too much for Gabe. ‘You little weasel! What are you implying?’

Bill Clempson let out a distinctly unmanly whimper as Gabe drew back his fist.

‘Gabriel!’ The landlord marched over.

‘What?’

‘Put him down.’

Gabe hesitated.

‘Put the vicar down, Gabe, or you’re barred. I mean it.’

Aware that all eyes were on him, Gabe released the reverend. Call-me-Bill slid to the floor like a sack of rubbish.

‘We’re leaving anyway.’ Reaching into his wallet, Gabe dropped two twenty-pound notes on the table. Grabbing Macy’s hand, he pulled her towards the door. As they stormed out of the pub, a camera clicked frenziedly.

A woman seated a few tables away watched them go, then turned to her husband.

‘If Valley Farm’s half as dramatic as this, I’m definitely watching it.’

‘Me too,’ said her husband. ‘That American bird’s a knockout. Laura Baxter had better watch her back.’

Annabel Wellesley tried to relax. Driving her new Range Rover Sport through Brockhurst High Street towards Fittlescombe, she was aware of her rigid back and hunched shoulders, and the clenched set of her jaw that made her whole face ache.

It had been an immensely stressful few weeks. Ever since Eddie got back from his American trip, he’d been like a racehorse with the bit between its teeth about this damned television programme. A reality show! Could there be anything more common? More shaming?

Eddie had assured her that he wouldn’t appear in front of the cameras. ‘I’m just the money man, darling.’ But Annabel understood that these sorts of programmes thrived on drama. It was only a matter of time before their private lives would be dragged into the maelstrom once again, a thought that brought Annabel out in a nervous rash.

And it wasn’t just the invasion of privacy. Annabel resented Eddie’s long absences from Riverside Hall, in particular the inordinate amount of time he seemed to spend in the company of the very pretty Mrs Baxter. They’d moved here for a fresh start, so that they could spend more time together as a couple, in private, and so that Eddie could focus on clawing back his political career. But instead, Eddie was never around, they were all over the newspapers again courtesy of the vile David Carlyle, and Eddie’s ‘return to Westminster’ campaign had been put on a permanent back burner.

Things might have been easier for Annabel if life had been running smoothly at Riverside Hall. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Having hired and fired three utterly useless local cleaning women (the last one, Rita, had such terrible body odour that Annabel had been forced to follow her around each room with a bowl of potpourri and a can of Febreze, and the ones before that were so lazy and inbred they thought dusting was something one did to crops and polishing silver meant putting priceless bone-handled cutlery in the dishwasher), Annabel was once again run ragged doing everything herself.

And then there was Milo.

Since Harrow had booted him out, Milo had been enrolled on an A-level course at the local comprehensive school in Hinton. To his mother’s certain knowledge, however, he’d attended this establishment a total of four times in the last three months, three of them to pick up a thoroughly unsuitable girl he’d started going out with, and once to cheer on the cricket team.

‘They’re so bad, Mum, honestly. They need all the support they can get.’

As admirable as her son’s team spirit was, Annabel realized it was small consolation in the face of his wanton laziness, rampant entitlement and utter lack of ambition. Milo spent half of his days in bed, and the other half either down at The Fox or sprawled out in front of the television watching Deal or No Deal or box sets of American dramas. Breaking Bad was his latest obsession.

‘It could be worse,’ Milo told Annabel, seriously, when she berated him for the umpteenth time for wasting his life. ‘At least I’m not a meth head.’

Annabel was at her wits’ end. Eddie had promised to ‘sort Milo out’, but he’d been so distracted with this damn TV show he’d barely glimpsed the boy in weeks.

Last night Annabel had finally lost her temper and had a terrible row with Milo. Roxanne, the appalling girlfriend from Hinton Comp, had ‘borrowed’ Annabel’s favourite string of pearls for a night out clubbing in London and failed to return them.

‘She was mugged,’ Milo told his mother solemnly.

‘The only mug around here is you,’ Annabel snapped. ‘She clearly sold them herself. Probably for drugs.’

‘Why would you say that?’ Milo looked hurt. ‘Roxie doesn’t do drugs.’

‘Of course she does drugs,’ said Annabel contemptuously. ‘All girls from her background do drugs. The only reason you don’t know that is because you’re from a different class. Not that anyone would ever know it these days.’

‘I’m glad they wouldn’t know it if it means being a crashing snob like you,’ Milo shot back. ‘You don’t know anything about Roxanne.’

‘I know she had no business wearing my jewellery. And I know she is never, ever setting foot in my house again. Do you understand?’

The ensuing row was truly awful. Eddie, as usual, had opted out, retreating to his study to ‘work’. Well, no more. Annabel had had enough. The new maid, Magda, was arriving this afternoon, thank God. Eddie had promised to come home and take Milo out of the house for a good talking-to, while Annabel showed the girl around. She was Eastern European, which boded well for hard work, if not necessarily for honesty. Still, at this point, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Annabel exhaled deeply as the valley opened out below her and the red-tiled roof of Wraggsbottom Farm hove into view.

She’d decided to drive over to Fittlescombe herself to collect Eddie. Partly because, if he didn’t talk to Milo today, she feared she might kill one or both of them. And partly because she wanted to see for herself what Valley Farm was all about. For a ‘money man’, Eddie was certainly spending a lot of time on set.

The worst part of finding out about Eddie’s affairs was the humiliation of not knowing. All those girls. All those years. And Annabel had had no clue.

Well, it wasn’t going to happen again. From now on, she intended to know everything.

‘You idiot! You absolute, bloody idiot!’

Gabe couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Laura so angry. Macy, thankfully, had already gone home, so she wasn’t there to see the meltdown. Most of the crew had gone too, but the lighting guys were still at the farm, setting up in the pig pens; as was Eddie Wellesley, who sat perched on a stool by the Aga, making calls and tapping figures into his iPad like an extremely well-heeled accountant.

‘What if he calls the police?’ asked Laura. ‘He could have you charged with assault.’

‘No one’s going to charge anyone,’ said Gabe. ‘There wasn’t a scratch on him.’

‘We start filming in a week!’ Laura screeched.

‘I know!’ Gabe shouted back. ‘Do you think I don’t know? You’re not the only one working your arse off for this.’

Laura put her head in her hands. ‘You are the face of this show, Gabe. People have to like you. You just beat up a clergyman in broad daylight because you didn’t like the cut of his jib. How is that helpful?’

‘He accused me of flirting with Macy. As good as accused me,’ Gabe shot back.

‘Well, I expect you were,’ said Laura.

‘I was not.’

‘You’d flirt with your own shadow if you thought no one was watching,’ Laura teased him. She knew she needed to lighten the mood. That her own stress was rubbing off on Gabe, and everyone, and making everything worse. But unfortunately Gabe took her comment the wrong way.

‘Now you’re being ridiculous,’ he said crossly. Thrusting his hands deep in his pockets, he stomped off like a sulky schoolboy.

‘He’s only angry because he knows I’m right,’ Laura said to Eddie, who’d sat and watched the entire contretemps in silence. Suddenly the stress of the day got too much for her. She pinched the bridge of her nose to try to stop the tears from coming, but it was too late.

‘Oh God. Sorry,’ she sniffed. ‘I think I’m just exhausted.’

Eddie walked over and wrapped his arms around her. ‘It’s all right. Everyone’s on edge. But Gabe’s right, the vicar won’t press charges. It’ll blow over.’

‘Will it?’ sobbed Laura.

‘Of course it will. But you must try to relax, you really must. You’ll make yourself ill at this rate.’

‘I know,’ Laura nodded, burying her face in Eddie’s shirt, which smelled incongruously of wood polish. He really was a lovely man.

‘Edward!’

Releasing Laura as if he’d just discovered she was made of molten lava, Eddie turned round. Annabel stood in the kitchen doorway, a picture of rage. Gabe must have left the door to the yard open when he stormed out.

‘Darling! What a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘Obviously.’

That’s all we need, thought Laura. More misunderstandings. She thought about saying something, trying to explain, but Annabel’s expression made it clear she was in no mood to hear it.

‘I need you to talk to Milo.’ Annabel was talking to Eddie, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘Right now.’

‘Of course,’ said Eddie, chastened. There was nothing going on between him and Laura. But after everything that had happened, he could hardly blame Annabel for thinking the worst.

Laura watched from the window as Eddie scurried across the farmyard after his rigid-shouldered wife. What a bloody awful day.

Valley Farm, 1. Marital Harmony, Nil.

Magda Bartosz clutched her small suitcase tightly in her left hand as she climbed out of her decrepit Ford Fiesta. It felt wrong, parking her rust-bucket of a car outside this spectacularly beautiful house. Like littering. But she was already late, thanks to an accident on the Lewes bypass, and there was nowhere else obvious to leave it. Smoothing down her skirt, Magda hurried up the steps to the front door, then hesitated.

Perhaps one doesn’t knock at the front door of a grand house, when arriving for a trial as a live-in maid? Is there a back door? A servants’ entrance? Or does that sort of thing only exist in Downton Abbey?, she thought.

Magda had been in England for a few years now, working as a companion-cum-housekeeper for an old woman who had since died. But English customs and traditions still baffled her, especially the ones that pertained to class. Magda herself had been born into an old and distinguished but impoverished family in Warsaw. Her proud, high cheekbones, smooth forehead and regal, aquiline nose bore testament to the better life once known by her ancestors. But everything that had once been refined and beautiful and pleasant about Magda’s life had evaporated long ago. So long ago, and so totally, that she rarely even thought about it any more.

I’m here now, she thought.

I’m lucky to be here, in this heavenly place, with a roof over my head and food and wages.

I must make this job work.

I must make the family love me.

Crunching across the gravel, she followed the path around the side of the house, past the noisily rushing river. A heavy wooden door led directly into the kitchen. Magda knocked loudly, but there was no answer. Tentatively, she tried the handle. It opened with a creak.

‘Hello?’

She stepped into the flagstoned room. It was spotlessly clean and smelled of fresh flowers and something baked and sweet and delicious. Something with cinnamon. For a moment she panicked that Lady Wellesley had already found a cleaner. But that couldn’t be right. Magda had received an email only yesterday confirming today’s arrangements.

‘Helloo?’ Setting down her suitcase, she ventured into the hall. The house appeared to be empty. A set of narrow, winding stairs led off to the right. Magda walked towards them. If there were a part of the house for servants, this was probably it. Suddenly she froze. A noise was coming from upstairs; a dreadful, primal moaning sound, as if someone had been injured.

Instinctively, Magda moved towards it. She heard it again, a woman’s voice. Her heart was pounding nineteen to the dozen. What if an intruder had attacked Lady Wellesley? What if he was still in the house somewhere? But she couldn’t run, nor could she call the police. At the top of the stairs now, her palms sweating, she burst into the room. ‘Are you all r …?’

A naked blonde with a phenomenal figure was lying on the bed, her back arched and legs spread. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. On the floor at the foot of the bed knelt a boy, also naked, his head very firmly planted between the girl’s thighs. The girl saw Magda first. Letting out an ear-piercing scream, she pulled the bed sheet around her like a shield. Startled, the boy turned round too.

‘Hello.’ He flashed Magda a sheepish smile. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Magda blurted, blushing to the roots of her hair. ‘I didn’t mean to … I thought someone had been hurt.’

Just then all three of them paused at the unmistakable sound of the front door opening and closing downstairs.

Seconds later a man’s voice boomed through the house like a giant’s. ‘Milo!’ Eddie roared. ‘Where are you? I want a word. Now.’

The smile melted off the boy’s face like butter on a hot stove. ‘Fuck.’ He turned back to the girl wrapped in the sheet behind him. ‘Dad’ll go ballistic if he finds you here. Hide!’

‘Where the fuck am I supposed to hide?’ demanded the girl. Not unreasonably, thought Magda, as – other than the bed – there wasn’t a stick of furniture in the room. Clearly this was a largely unused part of the house. Magda also noticed that the girl’s accent was distinctly EastEnders. Unlike the boy, who seemed to have a whole handful of plums in his mouth.

‘Please. Help us.’ He looked pleadingly at Magda. It didn’t seem to bother him in the least that he was still stark naked.

‘I … how?’ Magda stammered. Sir Edward Wellesley’s heavy footsteps could be heard thundering up the stairs.

‘Stall him. Please. Just till I can get Roxanne out of here.’

Magda stepped out into the corridor, closing the door behind her.

Eddie was so engrossed in finding Milo – after a difficult journey home with Annabel he needed someone to take out his frustrations on – he didn’t even notice the young woman standing in the hallway until he’d almost bumped into her and knocked her flying.

‘Sorry! So sorry.’ He threw his arms wide, like a footballer admitting a foul. ‘I was looking for my son. Are you the new cleaner?’

Magda nodded meekly. ‘I arrived a few minutes ago.’

‘Marvellous. Lady Wellesley’s going to be terribly pleased to see you. Did Milo let you in?’

‘Er …’ Magda hesitated.

‘My son. Seventeen-year-old boy? Lazy, irritating, probably still in his pyjamas?’

‘I haven’t seen anyone.’ Magda’s heart thumped at the lie. ‘I came in the kitchen door. It was open.’

Annabel appeared at the other end of the hallway.

‘Ah darling,’ said Eddie. ‘This is the new cleaner. I’m sorry, I forgot to ask you your name.’

‘Magdalena Bartosz. Pleased to meet you, Lady Wellesley.’

If this was Lady Wellesley looking ‘delighted’, Magda dreaded to think what she might look like annoyed. She was a beautiful woman, but her entire body seemed clenched, and her mouth was pursed in a tight ‘o’ of disapproval, like a cat’s arse.

‘What are you doing upstairs?’ she demanded suspiciously.

‘I … I thought I heard a … er … a cat,’ Magda stammered.

‘A cat?’ Annabel frowned.

‘Yes.’

‘We don’t own a cat.’

Magda blushed again. ‘I must have been mistaken. I checked all the rooms in case it was shut in but they’re all empty.’

‘Hmm,’ said Eddie. ‘God knows where Milo’s got to. Darling, why don’t you show Magda to the cottage? I’m sure she must be tired after her journey. He turned to Magda. ‘Do you have a case?’

‘Yes, a small one. It’s in the kitchen.’

‘I’ll carry it across for you.’

‘Really, there’s no need. I can manage.’

‘I insist,’ said Eddie.

Five minutes later, following her new employers across the lawn towards the gardener’s cottage that she hoped might become her home, Magda looked over her shoulder. The girl, Roxanne, was clothed now and sprinting for her life away from the house towards the woods leading out to the lane.

Good, thought Magda. She made it.

It wasn’t until that evening that she bumped into Milo again. After an exhaustive tour of the house and a veritable bible of instructions from Lady Wellesley about laundry, fireplace-sweeping and hand-washing crystal, Magda was washing up in the kitchen when Milo sauntered in. In jeans, bare feet and a dark green fisherman’s sweater with holes in it, he looked lanky, like a young giraffe still not quite sure what to do with its legs.

‘Thank you for before,’ he said. ‘I owe you one.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Magda didn’t meet his eye. He seemed nice enough, but she didn’t want him to think she was some sort of co-conspirator. His mother had the power to hire or fire her. Magda could not afford to offend or upset Lady Wellesley, for anyone.

‘My mother’s not a fan of Roxie’s,’ Milo went on. ‘She thinks she’s beneath me.’

She was certainly beneath you this afternoon, thought Magda.

Sir Edward had described his son as lazy and disobedient. Magda could certainly imagine that to be the case, despite his charm.

‘The thing is, we’re in love,’ Milo explained.

‘It’s really none of my business,’ said Magda, drying her hands and reaching for the kitchen door. ‘Goodnight.’

‘I’ll walk you to the cottage if you like,’ said Milo. ‘It’s dark out there and it’s the least I can do after you saved my bacon earlier.’

‘No.’ The word came out more sharply than Magda had intended. ‘And please, don’t mention this again. Goodnight.’

Milo watched, chastened, as she slipped into the darkness and out of sight.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Macy Johanssen adjusted the veil on her fascinator and surveyed the packed church surreptitiously from behind her order of service.

She’d been astonished to receive an invitation to Logan Cranley’s wedding, having never met either the bride or groom. But Angela Cranley, the bride’s mother, happened to pop into Wraggsbottom Farm during filming on Thursday and very sweetly asked Macy along.

‘The whole village will be there, so it’ll be a chance for you to meet everyone. And I know my ex-husband’s curious to meet you.’

Not as curious as I am to meet him, thought Macy. Brett Cranley was one of the richest men in Australia, and a big investor in America too, not least in the media sector. For a consummate networker like Macy, Brett Cranley was exactly the sort of man she wanted to make a good impression on. She’d chosen her outfit carefully: a taupe silk dress that looked nothing on the hanger but that clung seductively to Macy’s slender frame, making her look as though she’d been dipped in caramel; simple gold accessories; neutral Manolo pumps, and a wisp of netting from Philip Treacy over her dark bob that couldn’t have cost more than five bucks to make but which was the most expensive item in Macy’s entire outfit.