The Perfect Hero (21 page)

‘Shush!’ Gemma hushed. ‘She’ll hear you.’

‘I don’t care if she does,’ Kim said, sniffing unrepentantly. ‘That sort of acting shouldn’t be tolerated.’

‘She used to act with the Royal Shakespeare Company,’ Gemma pointed out. ‘And they think very highly of her.’

‘The Royal Shakespeare Company!’ Kim made a tutting sound. ‘Call that acting? That’s just standing on stage spouting poetry!’

Gemma rolled her eyes. ‘And she’s very well respected as a television actress. You should see her CV.’

‘I don’t need to,’ Kim said. ‘I bet she’s ruined every role she’s ever touched. I don’t know what Teresa’s thinking of. I would have done a much better job and I’m your mother, too.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘That scene you were shooting – it’s between mother and daughter.’

‘Lady Russell isn’t Anne’s mother.’

‘Isn’t she?’

‘No!’ Gemma said. ‘You really should read the book, Mum.’

‘The only thing I read these days are the glossies and
Vive!
I can’t be doing with any Austen or Shakespeare.’

Gemma knew she wasn’t joking. Even growing up, there’d been a shocking dearth of books in their house. Gemma wished she could operate like her mother but she always had to read the source material and anything else she could get her hands on. Anything to help. It was exhausting but, she hoped, worth it.

‘So many interruptions,’ Kim said, looking out of the orangery as the rain slowly began to stop. It had been drumming on the glass roof like a thousand tiny tap dancers when they’d rushed inside but now it had faded to a gentle patter.

‘I expect we’ll be back to it soon,’ Gemma said, tidying a stray strand of hair.

Kim nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully, dragging the single syllable out. Gemma was on immediate alert.

‘What?’ she said.

Kim’s mouth narrowed into a nasty little line and Gemma knew what was coming: criticism.

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You won’t want to hear. You never do. You know what you’re like when I have some advice to give you – you get all upset and uptight.’

‘No I don’t,’ Gemma said.

‘Yes you do. You know you do.’

‘Just tell me, Mum!’ she said, knowing she wouldn’t get any peace until her mother had had her say.

‘You want my advice?’

‘Yes!’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Mum! Just tell me.’

‘Okay,’ Kim said, taking in a deep breath before sighing it out slowly and dramatically, as if she were about to give a long-awaited speech on the world’s stage. ‘That scene you were doing with that woman who wasn’t your mother.’

‘What about it?’

‘Well, there’s just a couple of things I would’ve done differently.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like the dialogue and the actions.’

Gemma closed her eyes for a moment, refusing to respond. Instead, she walked towards the door at the end of the orangery and headed back outside, not caring if it was still raining. Anywhere – even the middle of a storm – was preferable to being in her mother’s company.

Rain didn’t affect you much when you were a screenwriter and Adam was in screenwriting mode that afternoon, his laptop open on his knee in his study up in the eaves of his nineteenth-century cottage. He was going to join the film crew later that day but there was no point heading out to Marlcombe Manor now. He stopped writing for a moment and stood up, stretching his arms above his head and cricking his neck. He wished it would stop raining. The garden was glad of it but any more and he’d worry that the whole plot would be washed away.

The garden was the main reason that Adam had bought Willow Cottage. It had come up for sale three years ago and he’d driven by it on a balmy autumn day when everything was golden and glowing. He’d been renting a small flat above a shop in Lyme Regis before that, splitting his time between there and a nasty little flat in Shepherd’s Bush whilst he’d decided where he wanted to base himself permanently.

Then, Nana Craig had suffered a bad fall and had been laid up for weeks and Adam knew he had to spend more time in Dorset. Besides, that’s where he was happiest and the train service to London wasn’t bad. There was nothing really stopping him from putting down some roots.

So, the evening he’d seen Willow Cottage, he’d pulled over at the side of the road and opened the little gate into an overgrown front garden. It looked as if the place was empty and, looking across at one of the downstairs windows, he couldn’t help noticing that there was more cobweb than curtain.

A side gate led round the old house to a back garden and it was that which sold the place to him, although it had really been more of a plot of land when he’d first seen it and had been in no state to be called a garden for some time. It was just a very long stretch of overgrown grass interspersed with nettles, brambles and thistles but it was surrounded by peaceful fields and backed on to a tiny stream flanked by willows, and Adam could see its potential immediately, planning out the borders and vegetable patches in his mind’s eye.

He’d made an offer the very next day, not batting an eyelid at the state of the old place. He’d get round to sorting it all out. The rotting kitchen cupboards could be ripped out and replaced as could the carpets. Wallpaper could be stripped and the damp problem wasn’t insurmountable.

For the first few months, he’d concentrated on the garden, cutting, clearing and digging until his limbs were tanned, toned and exhausted. Growing up with Nana Craig, he’d always been encouraged to garden but, with flats in Lyme Regis and London, he hadn’t had much of a chance over the years and Willow Cottage was his very first garden.

Nana Craig had been very impressed when she’d visited him. ‘What are you going to grow?’ she’d asked.

‘Happy,’ he’d said. ‘I’m going to grow happy.’

She’d chuckled at that. ‘Well, as long as there’s a few tomatoes and courgettes too.’

Looking out of the upstairs window now, he surveyed his little kingdom with pride. There was still a lot to do. He wanted to create some new borders and plant an orchard too. A garden was never static but he liked it that way. He’d grown lazy living in town but the garden got him away from his desk and kept him fit.

A sudden flash of ginger caught his eye and a very hairy cat leapt up on to the window sill, purring noisily.

‘Hello, Sir Walter,’ Adam said, his hand stroking the downy fur, sending a little ginger cloud into the air. ‘Don’t fancy the garden today, then?’

Sir Walter stuck his little pink nose up in the air as if such things as wet gardens shouldn’t even be discussed. Adam grinned.

He’d met Sir Walter the first week he’d moved into Willow Cottage. The back door had been open and the scrawny ginger tom had stalked into the place as if he’d owned it, meowing loudly. Adam had given him a saucer of milk and a share of his fish and chip supper which seemed to go down well. The poor thing was all skin and bone and seemed happy to bed down on an old cushion in the front room. They’d been housemates ever since.

None of the residents in the tiny village seemed to know anything about the cat and the notice Adam had put up in the local shop had gone unanswered. They were stuck with each other. Adam had never owned a pet before. His lifestyle hadn’t permitted it but, if he really was putting down roots, a pet seemed as good an idea as any. And Nana Craig loved taking care of Sir Walter whenever Adam had to be away from home, although his habit of sleeping on her favourite candy-striped cardigan and adding a thick layer of ginger to it didn’t go down too well.

He’d been writing the first draft of his screenplay for
Persuasion
when he’d moved into Willow Cottage and met the cat and the name Sir Walter had seemed to fit perfectly. He had such an air about him – as if the whole world was quite beneath him. But Adam loved him to bits.

Perhaps one of his favourite things about Sir Walter was the way he followed him whenever he set out to walk to Nana Craig’s. That had been another deal clincher for Adam – Willow Cottage was just two miles from his nan’s cottage and he could get to it via a lacework of footpaths which criss-crossed the Marshwood Vale.

‘Maybe I’ll saunter over there as soon as this rain stops,’ he said to Sir Walter. ‘What do you think?’

Sir Walter didn’t think much of the suggestion, choosing to lick a front paw instead.

Adam was just about to return to his laptop when the phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Adam!’

‘Nana! Are you okay?’ he said. She sounded breathless.

‘I’ve just seen Kay.’

‘Where?’

‘She was round here,’ Nana Craig said, ‘with that actor bloke.’

‘What actor bloke?’

‘That tall one. Great strapping fellow with too much blond hair.’

‘Oli? Oli Wade Owen?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘What were they doing at yours?’

‘He was taking her to lunch. That was his story, anyway.’

‘Lunch at yours?’

‘No!’ Nana Craig said. ‘He’d driven his flash car through some flooded lane. Probably racing it around like an idiot. Anyway, it’s stuck there and he and Kay walked to mine to dry off. He’s got your t-shirt and raincoat, by the way. I told him you’d be wanting them back.’

Adam shook his head in confusion. ‘Where are they now?’

‘Oh, they’ve gone. Got a taxi back to Lyme Regis. And what’s all this about some Gemma woman?’ Nana Craig said. ‘Kay seemed to think you’re going out with her.’

Adam sighed. ‘That’s just some misunderstanding.’

‘Are you sure? She seemed quite convinced.’

‘Nana, believe me, nothing is going on with me and Gemma.’

‘Because you know what these actor types are like, don’t you? I don’t need to tell you again?’

‘No, you don’t need to tell me again,’ Adam said, rolling his eyes at Sir Walter who had left the window sill for the comfort of Adam’s armchair.

‘So, you’ve not made a move on Kay, I take it?’

‘Nana!’

‘Don’t
Nana
me! If you like this girl, you should tell her. I don’t know why you haven’t yet.’

‘I’ve only just met her.’

‘Yes, and she’s only just met this actor too but she’s having lunch and flirting with him all over Dorset already.’

‘She was flirting with him?’ Adam said.

‘In my front room. Disgusting! And he didn’t even have his trousers on.’

‘What?’

‘That actor bloke – his trousers were soaked. He had to take them off and I didn’t have any spare to lend him.’

‘Right,’ Adam said, thankful, at least, that Oli hadn’t been making a move on Kay in his nan’s front room.

‘You’ve got to tell her, Adam,’ Nana Craig said. ‘You do like her, don’t you?’

Adam raked a hand through his hair. ‘Yes, I do like her.’

‘Well then?’

Adam groaned inwardly. He knew his nana meant well but he did often wish she would let him do things in his own time.

‘You’re not still put off by what happened with Heidi, are you?’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘Adam? That was just one unlucky—’

‘I know,’ he interrupted.

‘And you can’t let it stop you meeting other women.’

‘Nana, I’ve got to get back to my work,’ he said, hoping she’d take the hint.

‘All I’m saying is that you’d better make your move if you want to stand a chance with that girl. I saw the way she was looking at that Oli and – believe me – I know that look.’

‘All right!’ Adam said. ‘I’ll tell her.’

‘You will?’

‘I will,’ he said, knowing it was the only way he was going to get any peace.

‘When?’

‘What do you mean,
when
? You want written notification?’

‘I know you, Adam Craig. You’re a procrastinator.’

‘No I’m not.’

‘You jolly well are. But let me tell you, this one isn’t going to hang around and wait. You’ve got to make your move.’

‘I’ve said I will.’

There was a pause. ‘Adam?’

‘Yes?’

‘Give me a call as soon as you tell her.’

‘Goodbye, Nana.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

The taxi ride back to Lyme Regis was one of the strangest journeys of Kay’s life. Oli was silent at first, his head bent down and his blue eyes hidden behind his dark glasses. Kay felt horribly conspicuous in her bright green cardigan and yellow hat and had seen the double take the taxi driver had given as they’d got into the car.

‘Where’s the fancy dress party, then?’ he’d quipped. ‘Dreadful floods at the moment,’ he said, peering at them through the rear-view mirror. ‘Would avoid driving round here if I were you.’

‘It’s a bit late for that, I’m afraid,’ Kay said and then received a nudge in the ribs from Oli.

‘Shush,’ he said.

So this was the life of a movie star’s girlfriend, was it? Being made to dress incognito and being told to shush all the time? Kay wasn’t impressed. In fact, she was just about to tell Oli when he did something quite unexpected and picked her hand up and gave it a squeeze.

‘I’m sorry today turned out like this,’ he said, leaning in towards her and whispering in her ear.

‘It’s okay,’ Kay found herself saying.

‘No, it’s not,’ Oli whispered. ‘I wanted it to be – you know – special.’

‘Did you?’

He nodded and his fingers traced a tiny circle in the palm of her hand which gave her the most delicious goose-bumps. ‘Of course I did.’

Kay felt her body heat up and was quite sure her face was too as she looked into his eyes.

‘We were sitting in the back of a taxi when he proposed to me,’
she’d tell journalists in the years to come
. ‘He was only wearing a t-shirt and an old raincoat,’
she’d say with a giggle
. ‘It’s a long story!’

‘Oh, tell us, Kay!’
they’d beg.

‘All I’m going to tell you is that I said yes.’

Gazing into his eyes now, she wondered what he’d had planned for their lunch together.

‘Oli?’ she said. But she didn’t get a chance to ask him anything because it was then that his phone rang with a blast of Wagner. Kay recognised the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and grinned.