‘Thanks for looking after Ethel and Elsie. Were they all right?’
‘Completely fine. I think they missed you. Ethel kept jumping up at the window, I think she was looking for your car.’
Jess looked around for Ollie.
‘He said he had to shoot off,’ said Brooke.
‘He’s hardly said a word to me all day.’
‘After what Ryan said to him, I’m not surprised.’
‘What?’
‘Well, Ryan kind of told him to back off from you, didn’t he?’
‘Did he? When?’
‘On the phone. Ollie doesn’t want any trouble. He’s got enough trouble with Red coming down.’
‘Is she?’ Jess felt a cloud of disappointment dim the room. Everybody was deserting her. Ryan back in the US. Jonathan shouting at her. Now Red coming to upset things.
‘Yeah. Tomorrow, I think. Can’t wait to meet her. A proper bona fide rock star! If she’s a bitch to Ollie I’ll give her a piece of my mind. Louis says he met her backstage at a Prince’s Trust concert in the park and …’
Jess tuned out as Brooke gossiped with gusto all the way back to Granny’s Nook. She needed to think. Ryan had told Ollie to back off? Red was coming to Trevay? Her little Cornish applecart was well and truly being upset.
O
llie felt sick with nerves. Red had called from Heathrow and was on her way down the M5 in a blacked-out people carrier. She had sounded tired but was unusually upbeat.
‘I’m home to see my man!’ she’d whooped down the phone. ‘Get yourself scrubbed up and ready for me. I need you, Ollie, babe. And I mean neeeeed you.’
‘Great, honey. I’m looking forward to seeing you too. It’s been such a long time.’ He added a little joke. ‘How will I recognise you?’
‘Google me, babe, I’m the hot mamma with the great arse.’
He laughed with what he hoped was conviction. ‘Can’t wait, Red. Can’t wait.’
There was the sound of a muffled conversation between her and someone in the car.
‘Who’s with you?’ he asked.
‘Only Henrik and Bibi and Bango and …’ She pulled away from the mouthpiece to ask, ‘What’s your name, babe?’ Back into the phone: ‘… Oh yeah, and Mezz,’ she laughed, ‘and the fucking driver, who’s directly related to the slowest man on earth.’ Again she pulled the receiver away from her mouth: ‘Henrik, tell the twat to put his foot down or I swear to God I’ll drive myself.’
‘Where are you?’ Ollie asked.
‘Fuck knows. Henrik, where are we?’
More talking that Ollie couldn’t make out. She came back on the line. ‘Just passing Lifton Down.’
‘Oh shit, you’re about an hour away. I’d better get a move on.’
‘Yeah, baby, you get a move on before I make a move on you.’ She laughed hysterically and Ollie wondered if it was due to jet lag, alcohol or something altogether less palatable.
They said their goodbyes and he checked his watch: 6.30 a.m. He was due into rehearsal mid-morning. He hoped Red wouldn’t be too awkward and clingy when she arrived. With luck she’d want to sleep and he could leave her in his hotel room. But what about the entourage with her? He couldn’t stand Henrik – and who the hell were Bibi, Bango and Mezz? He needed to talk to someone who’d calm him down. He called Jess.
*
Jess was up and out on the beach with Ethel and Elsie. The warm sun was promising a perfect June day. The sea was flat calm and the cornflower sky reflected on its surface. The concerns of the last few days she put down to nerves. Her nerves, Jonathan’s nerves, Ryan’s nerves. The opening night was looming and rehearsals were getting more intense. It wasn’t just the cast on stage any more. Now, they were rehearsing with the band and the juvenile dancers from the local theatre school, along with their principal, the fearsomely glamorous Miss Coco Parry, who ruled her young pupils with an icy glare and plenty of praise – and they adored her.
Miss Coco, as she was known by one and all, was an ex-Bluebell dancer and one-time Tiller Girl. Now, surely pushing eighty, her face was still beautiful despite the wrinkles, her figure lithe and slender, her hair in a glossy raven pleat and her make-up immaculate. She held everyone spellbound with her charmingly colourful stories – told in her smoky, deep, elocuted voice – of dancing at the London Palladium in the Tiller Girl line-up.
‘Darling, I must tell you that high kicking in a synchronised line of girls is much harder than it looks and takes its toll on one’s digestive system. We had to be awfully careful about what we ate before a show. Certainly no baked beans. The blowing off that went on as we danced was nobody’s business! I remember one trombonist almost swallowed his mouthpiece he was laughing so much.’
Jess was chuckling to herself, recalling Miss Coco’s reminiscences, when her phone rang. It was Ollie.
‘Hello …’ she answered tentatively. Ollie was still being rather cool with her, almost avoiding her, and she couldn’t think why he’d be calling at this hour.
‘Hey, Jess.’ He sounded rather down. ‘Just wondered if you had a moment to talk?’
‘What’s wrong?’ She settled herself on a barnacled rock and tickled Elsie’s ears as she brought the ball back ready to be thrown again.
‘I dunno. I’m just … it sounds stupid … but Red’s arriving in the next hour and I’m just not … ready for her, I suppose.’
‘What do you mean?’ She chucked the ball and wiped the dog saliva and seawater off her fingers.
‘Just that, really. I don’t think I want her here.’
‘Ah.’
‘Mm.’
They both sat in silence, pondering this. Jess staring out to sea, watching a cormorant dive and wondering where it would surface. Ollie in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, sitting on his crumpled bed and feeling a rising, overwhelming anxiety.
‘What is she going to do when she gets here?’ asked Jess.
‘Fuck everything up.’ He wanted to crawl away and hide.
‘No, she’s not. You’re being overdramatic. Let’s be practical. Is she staying at the Starfish?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Is she on her own?’
He groaned. ‘No. She’s got some hangers-on with her. They’ll be awful.’
‘How do you know that?’ Jess had an urge to kick the self-pity out of him.
‘Because one of them is Henrik, who hates me, and the others will all be like him.’
Jess went for tough love. ‘Stop sounding like a sulky teenager. Your girlfriend is on her way. So are her friends. Get on to reception and book some rooms for them. While you’re at it, book Red into a room of her own so that she can have her own space.’
‘She’ll go mad,’ he said fearfully.
‘Tell her you’ve done it as a thoughtful gesture for her, knowing she needs to chill after all that travelling. Get the room filled with flowers and have them stock the mini bar. Book a masseur and anything else she likes.’
‘Maltesers.’
‘How very rock’n’roll,’ Jess said drily. ‘Order Maltesers by the sackload. That should keep her busy and out of your hair while you’re rehearsing. Oliver Pinkerton, you’ve got work to do. Get on and do it.’
*
The receptionist was super efficient; as soon as she heard who the rooms were for, she was straight on the phone to Louise Lonsdale. Ever on the lookout for a PR opportunity, Louise immediately vacated her personal suite and rounded up the housekeeping team with orders to have everything spotless within forty minutes.
There were three other single rooms available. They weren’t the best in the hotel, but by the time Louise’s gang had filled them with flowers, the latest DVDs, iced bottles of Krug and gift sets of exquisite Cornish gifts, they were suitable for royalty.
Ollie was showered, shaved, dressed and waiting at the top of the Starfish
steps by 7.28. Louise came out to give him the once-over.
‘Nice shirt,’ she said.
He hugged her. ‘Thank you for getting everything ready at such short notice.’
‘The Starfish
is always ready.’ She smiled at him. ‘I may have given you preferential rates on your room, but believe me, I’ll make a profit on the deal when word gets out Red is here.’
‘Louise!’ He stepped back, feigning shock. ‘You mean you’re not running this place as a charity?’
She put a manicured fingertip to her lips. ‘Shh.’
Three motorbikes slewed to a halt at the bottom of the steps and three pillion passengers dressed in black leathers and with black helmets leapt off. Out of the bike’s panniers they pulled fearsome-looking cameras with huge lenses. Twenty seconds later a red-and-white Fiat 500 with blacked-out windows joined them. The driver, with a hoodie covering most of his face, jumped out brandishing a similar camera.
Within seconds a black people carrier escorted by two further motorbikes and a couple of VW Golfs skidded to a halt.
Ollie reached for Louise’s hand. ‘Oh shit. This is it.’
Louise shook his hand away and called to her doormen: ‘Please help our guests into the hotel.’
The four doormen ran down the steps in their regulation black linen trousers and shirts, barged through the phalanx of flashing cameras and bodies – followed by Louise and Ollie, who was somewhat surprised to find himself being steered by Louise’s very strong hand in the small of his back.
The side door of the people carrier slid open and Henrik emerged. Several cameras went off in his face. He flapped his hands about and swore at them, before leaning into the dark interior and offering his hand to a tiny woman dressed in skin-tight black leather trousers and a white silk blouse undone to her navel. One small breast, its nipple pierced with a glinting diamond, escaped for a moment and the cameras went wild. Her dramatically kohl-lined eyes sparkled mischievously and she ran a hand through her tomato-soup-coloured spiky hair.
‘Hi, guys – Red’s home!’ She posed and preened for a couple of minutes before finally spotting Ollie. She pointed a finger at him and beckoned him to her. The photographers parted to let him through.
‘And here’s my baby boy.’ She put her hands either side of Ollie’s face and kissed him deeply and fully. Again the flashing of cameras was like a mini-blitzkrieg.
Finally she pulled away. ‘Have you missed me, baby?’ She reached for his hand and placed it inside her shirt while simultaneously grabbing his crotch. ‘Hmm. I see you have!’
The photographers laughed and leered and took the picture.
‘How long you here for, Red?’ asked one of them.
‘As long as it takes. But now my boyf and I have a lotta catching up to do. Carry me, baby?’ She pulled on a cute little girl expression.
‘What?’ Ollie asked.
‘Carry your little Red to bed.’
She hung her arms around his neck and he was obliged to pick her up and carry her up the steps and into the hotel.
Several guests were gathered in the large hall, on their way to breakfast, and they broke into spontaneous applause as they watched the handsome actor carry the rebel rock star into the lift. As soon as the doors closed he put her down.
‘Are you tired?’ he asked her.
‘Not too tired.’ She leaned against him suggestively.
‘I’ve got a great room for you.’
‘Yeah? What’s the bed like?’
‘Comfy, I think.’
‘Good. I need some comfort, Ollie.’ She opened her blouse to expose her breasts. ‘Don’t you?’
*
Incredibly, Ollie was only six minutes late for rehearsal.
‘Has she arrived?’ asked Brooke, fully au fait with all the gossip thanks to Jess.
Ollie put his coat on the hooks by the door and answered, ‘Yes.’
‘And?’ asked Jess, sidling up.
‘Your plan has worked. She’s having a massage right now and then a few hours sleep. Tonight she wants to meet you girls.’
‘Oh my God! Really? Where? The Starfish?’ Brooke was clearly rather excited. ‘No. That’ll be too busy. Unless she likes the attention? Or would you both like to come back to Granny’s Nook and we could get a takeaway? Is she vegetarian? Would she mind if Louis were there? He thinks he might come down tonight.’ She stopped talking and looked at Jess and Ollie. ‘Am I gabbling?’
‘Yes,’ said Ollie. ‘Look, she’s cool. She just wants to say hi to you both because I’ve told her quite a bit about you, that’s all. She’ll be tired anyway. A quick pizza at Granny’s Nook sounds perfect.’
*
Ollie returned to the Starfish aglow with satisfaction that the evening was sorted. He was in for a rude awakening.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ snarled Red, the moment he walked in. ‘I didn’t fly halfway round the world for you to ignore me.’
‘Ya,’ flounced Henrik, blowing on his newly varnished nails. ‘Vere haf you bin, Actor Boy? Red iz zuperstar and she not liking ze ignoring from anyone.’
Ollie walked over to Red and kissed her angry little mouth. He needed this like a hole in the head, but experience had taught him that the best way to deal with her was to turn on the charm. ‘Did you have a nice massage and a sleep?’
‘Yes,’ she replied grudgingly.
‘Would you like to meet my friends for supper in their proper little Cornish cottage?’
‘Who are they?’
‘Jess and Brooke – I’ve told you about them.’
‘Oh yeah. The dykes who’ve been smothering you.’
Ollie paused, wondering whether to contradict her or not. In the end he confided, ‘Well, actually one of them is dating someone who is pretty famous.’
‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’
‘God no! No!’ improvised Ollie. ‘I just thought a quiet, fun evening, all of us together, and then an early night would be what you needed.’
‘They’d better not ask me to sing or sign anything for their cousin’s workmate’s friend’s daughter who’s raising money for charity.’
‘I promise that won’t happen.’
Red looked over at Henrik. The puffed-up PA was looking daggers at Ollie. ‘Hen, be a doll, get Bibi and Mezz and Bango up here. I need to look my best.’
Ollie moved towards the door. ‘Kay, babe. I’ll leave you to it and I’ll come back in an hour.’
*
An hour later he returned to the suite to find the retinue of stylist, hair designer and make-up artist in a drama of discarded clothes and hairspray. Red stood in the centre of the room surrounded by them, each doing their thing. Once they stepped back, and Ollie could see her, he gasped. She looked exactly as she had when he left her.