The Show (6 page)

He answered through a mouthful of Doritos.

‘Only one way to find out.’

Eddie leaned back in his red brocade armchair, an amused look on his face.

‘So you want me to back you?’

Laura blushed scarlet. How had she let Gabe talk her into this?

She was sitting in the library at Riverside Hall, a stunning, oak-panelled room lined with gold-leafed hardbacks and beautifully preserved first editions that Laura was quite certain were never read. Fast Eddie was more attractive in the flesh than she’d expected. Perhaps it was the half-suppressed smile, or the playful twinkle in his eye, but there was something innately flirtatious and fun about him that somehow made Laura feel even more embarrassed.

‘I’m so sorry, Sir Edward, I shouldn’t have come.’ She stood up. ‘I’m afraid I’ve wasted your time.’

‘First of all, it’s Eddie. And second of all, please sit down. You haven’t wasted my time at all. It’s not often I have beautiful young women come to me with business propositions.’

Laura sat.

‘Tell me more about the show,’ said Eddie. ‘I think it has to be about more than just farming life.’

‘Oh, it would be,’ Laura assured him. ‘The Swell Valley is unique. I imagine you know that already, as you moved here. People have always been fascinated by this area, by the combination of the rural idyll and the celebrity residents. The scandals.’ She avoided meeting his eye. ‘Tatiana Flint-Hamilton, Brett Cranley, Emma Harwich, Santiago de la Cruz. They’re all synonymous with the valley. So yes, we’re showing farming life, but we’re also trying to package what it is that makes this place so special. It’s a nostalgic snapshot of England, if you like: what England used to be, what we all still wish it were.’

‘Like a Richard Curtis film, but in a reality format,’ Eddie mused.

Laura looked delighted. ‘Exactly! That’s it exactly.’

‘All right,’ said Eddie. ‘So how would it work, if I were to fund this? What would I get for my investment? Talk me through the nuts and bolts.’

He listened intently as Laura explained the process of producing a television series.
She’s bright
, he thought,
and ambitious. And sexy.
He noticed the way her dark hair continually fell forward over her face and her breasts rose and fell quickly beneath her silk shirt when she became animated. She had very little make-up on and was simply dressed in a grey woollen skirt and a cream blouse. Eddie was a fan of the effortless look.

After ten minutes of straight talking, Laura finally drew breath. ‘So. What do you think?’

‘I think it’s intriguing,’ said Eddie. ‘I’ll give it some thought and come back to you.’

He stood up and offered Laura his hand.

‘Oh. Right. OK,’ she stammered. ‘Thanks.’

She hadn’t expected such an abrupt end to the meeting, and wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. She was still standing there like a lemon, her hand clasped in Eddie’s, when his wife walked in carrying a tray of tea.

Lady Wellesley took in the scene – a beautiful young woman, her husband in flirt-mode – and shot Laura a look that could have melted stone.

Christ
, Laura thought.
Penny wasn’t kidding. She really is intimidating.

‘Ah, darling.’ Releasing Laura, Eddie wrapped an arm around his wife’s stiff, distrustful shoulders. ‘How sweet of you to bring us tea. But Mrs Baxter was just leaving.’

‘What a shame,’ said Annabel, in a tone that clearly translated as
good riddance.

‘I’ll see myself out,’ Laura mumbled awkwardly.

Had the meeting gone well or badly? She couldn’t tell. Driving home, she wondered whether going into business with a politician might be more trouble than it was worth, especially if his wife disapproved. When it came to poker faces, Eddie Wellesley was a master.

Two days passed. Then three. Then four.

By Friday morning, Laura’s ‘work-from-home’ day, she and Gabe had still heard nothing from Eddie.

‘It’s dead in the water,’ said Laura.

‘You don’t know that,’ said Gabe, although privately he agreed. If Wellesley wanted in, he’d have called by now.

‘I do,’ Laura said. ‘The wife put the kibosh on it. I’m sure she thought I was flirting with her husband.’

‘And were you?’ said Gabe, giving Laura’s bottom a playful squeeze as she leaned over to pick up yet more Lego from the floor. Hugh had tried to build a rocket before nursery this morning, with mixed results. ‘You career women will stop at nothing to get what you want. How many times have I told you your place is in the kitchen?’

‘Er, no times?’ said Laura. ‘The last time I cooked for you, you said the lasagne tasted like burned plastic.’

Gabe grimaced. ‘Oo, God yes, that lasagne. That was rough. Not the kitchen then. The bedroom.’ He circled his arms around her waist. ‘I hate you getting on that train to London.’

‘So do I,’ said Laura, with feeling. ‘But unfortunately, unless we can get this show off the ground, we need the money. Now sod off and spread some slurry, or whatever glamorous job it is you have on today.’

Gabe went out into the fields, leaving Laura to finish cleaning up while Luca had his morning nap. She really must sack Lianne. The house was a pigsty. Then again, thought Laura, catching sight of herself in the hall mirror, I fit right in. Still in her dirty Snoopy pyjamas and a dressing gown that was more hole than cloth (too lazy to get dressed, she’d pulled wellies and a coat on over the top to drive Hugh to nursery earlier), her overall look was definitely more Waynetta Slob than Grace Kelly.

A loud banging at the door made her jump. What had Gabe forgotten this time?

‘Be quiet, you arse, you’ll wake the ba … Oh!’ She opened the door to find Eddie Wellesley smiling at her. That same half-smile that had made her feel such an idiot in his library. ‘It’s you.’

Immaculately dressed in corduroy trousers and a royal-blue cashmere sweater, and smelling faintly of toothpaste and expensive cologne, Eddie looked like a creature from another planet. A rich planet. A planet that owned an iron.

‘May I come in?’

Laura glanced back at the sea of mess behind her. ‘Er … the house is a bit, er …’

‘I don’t care about the house,’ Eddie said briskly, easing past her into the hallway. ‘I’m here to talk about selling the “glamour” of the Swell Valley.’ The half-smile had become a full smile now and was openly teasing.

‘You’re in?’ Laura hardly dared believe it.

‘I’m in. So long as we can agree a few quid pro quos, naturally.’

Five minutes later, still in her pyjamas but having managed to brush her hair and wash her face, Laura brought two mugs of coffee into the relatively clutter-free dining room.

Eddie cut to the chase.

‘I’ll stump up a hundred grand to get things started. There’ll be more to come as we need it.’

‘We will need it,’ Laura said honestly.

‘I know. Money’s not going to be a problem.’

What a great sentence
, thought Laura.
I wonder if Gabe and I will ever be able to say it.

‘I want an exec producer credit, fifty per cent ownership and a say in all business-related decisions, including how we pitch this and to whom.’

‘Did you have somebody in mind?’ Laura asked.

‘Not “somebody” as such,’ said Eddie. ‘But I have some ideas. You know the UK market, so I’ll take your advice on how to sell this here. But I want us to pitch in America as well. The whole “packaging of a lost England” thing. I liked that a lot. And I think the Yanks will lap it up.’

‘I see.’ Laura sipped her coffee. ‘The thing is, the US networks—’

‘Will need a US name attached. I know,’ Eddie interrupted her. ‘Which is why I want to fly out to Los Angeles next week and interview some possible co-presenters.’

‘Next
week?
’ Laura almost choked on her Nescafé.

‘No point faffing about.’

‘Eddie, I appreciate your enthusiasm, I really do. And I couldn’t be more delighted you want to be involved. But we really have nothing to show people yet.’

‘On the contrary. We have you. We have this place,’ Eddie waved an arm around Wraggsbottom’s beamed dining room. ‘We have a treatment, and funding, and we have your handsome and charming husband to bring it all to life.’

‘You haven’t even met my husband!’ Laura reminded him.

‘If you married him, I’m sure he’s marvellous,’ Eddie purred. ‘And, as you say, he knows this valley inside out. The problem is he has no experience on camera. If we’re going to sell this series globally, we’ll need someone who does.’

‘Right,’ said Laura.

‘Ideally a woman.’

Talking to Fast Eddie was like being run over by a very enthusiastic steamroller. A steamroller that was conveniently made out of money.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Laura said.

‘Of course.’

‘Why are you doing this? I mean, you don’t need the money. Television’s not your business. And you barely know us.’

Eddie laughed. ‘All true, my dear. All true. But I’m a big believer in gut instinct. I like you. I like your idea and I think it has legs. Eventually I hope to go back into politics, but for the time being I need a new challenge.’

‘Well, this will certainly be that,’ said Laura.

‘Have you thought about local opposition? How do you want to handle that?’ Eddie asked. ‘You realize that for every villager who’s excited by the idea of television cameras in the village stores, there’ll be five who feel violated and think you’re defacing their community.’

Laura shrugged breezily. ‘Gabe and I can take a bit of stick.’

‘It might be worse than that,’ Eddie said seriously. ‘If we go forward with this, we all need to be prepared for a fight.’

They finished their coffees and Eddie got up to go.

‘I’ll get my lawyer to draw something up,’ he told Laura. ‘In the meantime, why don’t you see if you can whip up any interest this side of the pond. And I’ll book my flights to California.’

After he left, Laura sat frozen at the dining table for a full minute, feeling not unlike Dorothy after the twister deposited her in Oz.

Did that conversation really just happen?

Are we really going to do this?

She laughed out loud.

Screw you, John Bingham.

I’m about to produce the next big thing in British television.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Champagne, sir?’

Eddie Wellesley had barely stepped over the threshold of Michael Hart’s Neo-Palladian mansion when he was accosted by a preposterously handsome young man bearing a silver tray.

‘Thank you.’ Eddie sipped at the dainty crystal flute as he walked down the white marble hallway, feeling like an extra in a Roger Moore movie from the seventies. The famous producer’s house was the last world in vulgarity: ridiculously huge, opulent, gold-plated, and so eye-wateringly naff Eddie doubted whether it could ever have been built in England. At home, even pop stars and footballers and reality stars drew the line somewhere. But not in Los Angeles. Here, there were no lines. Eddie rather liked it.

Even better than the house itself, with its fish tanks and cream silk carpets and solid gold taps and hideous portraits of the lady of the house in various states of undress, were Eddie’s fellow guests. Michael Hart clearly had a type when it came to the fairer sex. Lithe, obviously underage girls who looked like models but were probably prostitutes, mingled with older women whose faces and bodies had all been surgically re-created, to greater or lesser degrees. With the exception of the waiters, who all looked like actors, and the sports stars (nine foot tall to a man and black as the ace of spades), the men were all short, ugly, old and fat.
And rich
, Eddie presumed, judging by the seven-figure cars pulling up to the valet station, and the improbably proportioned women on their stumpy little arms. The whole affair could be filed under ‘Jeremy Clarkson’s wet dream’.

Despite the hordes of people, Macy Johanssen was easy to find. Of course, Eddie already knew what she looked like. He’d spent hour upon hour in the last two weeks watching some truly ghastly American television in search of the right presenter for the Swell Valley series. Macy Johanssen had fairly leaped off the screen.

Macy’s agent, Paul Meyer, had put it perfectly when he telephoned Eddie at his hotel this afternoon to suggest he ‘swing by’ the Hart party.

‘If Macy shows up at all, she’ll be there to talk business. Look for the only woman surrounded by at least four powerful men and with all her clothes on. And if that doesn’t work, look down.’

And there she was, a tiny figure in a black Calvin Klein trouser suit with a fitted tuxedo jacket, holding court amongst a gaggle of enraptured executives from Sony. Her dark hair was cut in her signature sleek bob, her porcelain skin flawless and her crystal-blue eyes sharp and intelligent.

‘Excuse me.’ Eddie effortlessly parted the throng, his cut-glass English accent slicing through the air like a silver monogrammed knife through butter. ‘Miss Johanssen? I’m Sir Edward Wellesley. I wonder, might I have a word?’

Macy turned and glared at him.

‘We’ll leave you to it,’ the fattest, loudest Sony man said, smiling at Macy as he led his compatriots away. There was something about Eddie’s voice and manner that commanded authority, even here.

‘No, no, please. There’s no need,’ Macy called after them. ‘Sir Edward and I have nothing to dis—’

She broke off when she realized she was talking to four retreating backs. Turning furiously to Eddie she said, ‘Thanks for nothing!’

‘Oh, come now, don’t be angry,’ Eddie said smoothly. ‘I’m sure they’ll be back. Whereas I may not be.’

Macy refused to be mollified. ‘Paul sent you here, didn’t he?’

Eddie smiled. ‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly.’

‘Really, I could strangle the man.’ Macy did nothing to hide her exasperation. ‘He’s supposed to my agent. He’s supposed to represent
me.
I told him quite categorically that I have no interest in presenting your show. None whatsoever.’

‘A message that he also passed on to me, in no uncertain terms,’ said Eddie. ‘Drink?’