"Picture?" The vision snorted. The sun caught several large jewels on her long, thin fingers as she beat them irritably against her folded arms. Unlike her own digits, Rosie noticed, they were completely free of paint stains, scalpel cuts, and garden dirt under the nails. "Oh, I see," Champagne said sneeringly. "You
work
for Mattster. Well, I'm afraid the session for today is canceled."
Mattster
. "Canceled?" Rosie croaked, her mouth dry. "Did he…I mean, did he ask you—"
"To come and meet you and tell you? Yeah," snapped Champagne, her voice fast and irritated. "Couldn't come himself— he's frightfully busy. With a picture, too, as it happens. One with me in it. He's terribly excited that we're filming
Farm Fatale
here…"
Rosie's legs had turned to stone. Her bowels felt dangerously wobbly.
Filming? She recalled the newspaper report—"D'Vyne is currently scouting for locations in the English countryside." "But…" Rosie's brain pushed feebly, trying to make sense of it. "But why did Murgatroyd come to pick me up?"
"Because Matt's been too bloody busy to tell him not to, obviously," snapped Champagne. "You're hardly at the top of his list of priorities, you know." She stuck her brown globes of breast forward, shooting Rosie a mocking glance from beneath suggestively lowered lids. "Now I suggested you toddle off home, yeah?" She yawned. "Mattsters not going to be requiring your, ahem, services anymore. Not while I'm at Ladymead, at any rate. And who knows how long
that
might be?"
Watching her turn on her foot-high heels and, with the graceful, spindly lurch of a colt, click-clack back across the cobblestones, Rosie felt the world fall in. She reeled as the ground rushed up to meet her, catching herself just in time. As she staggered down the Ladymead drive, snatches of conversation surfaced and stung her brain.
Not while I'm at Ladymead, at any rate. And who knows how long
that might be? Because Matt's probably been too bloody busy to tell him
not to…to meet you and tell you…
Rosie raised her eyes and stared hard at the heavens, which, appropriately enough, had begun to cloud over. How could Matt
do
this? Had it all meant nothing to him? After all he had said? She was swallowing back the sobs so hard her throat hurt. She'd been a quick shag, nothing more. A one-day dalliance to be dumped as soon as the real love of his life came back to him, hair and breasts flowing. A woman who made even Bella look plain.
Bella, of course, had been right about Champagne. Matt, like Jack, had never got over the One That Got Away. Another widower grieving inconsolably over a dead relationship. Except that this one was all too alive. Champagne's hair, her skin, even her narrow and spiteful eyes, had all been bursting with vitality. Her cardigan, in particular, had been bursting.
"Mattster's not going to be requiring your, ahem, services anymore." Matt must have
told
Champagne about the afternoon they had spent in bed. Cringing, Rosie recalled the mocking green gaze, the curved, curled lip. She shut her eyes tightly and immediately saw Matt and Champagne lying, sated, a tangle of elegant limbs, in the four-poster bed. "But did you have to fuck her, darling?" she could hear Champagne's bored drawl. "I mean, not really fair, was it?"
***
"Rosie?" The twentieth time the phone rang, she finally picked it up. The faint hope that it was Matt had finally triumphed over the strong fear that it was Bella.
In any event, it was neither.
"Mark." Rosie swallowed hard, unwilling for him, of all people, to realize she had been crying.
"Well, don't sound quite so embarrassingly thrilled to hear from me."
Rosie, head whirling, could barely understand what he was saying. Why should she be thrilled to hear from him? Her mind still churning with Champagne and Matt, she was struggling even to remember who he was.
"Everything all right?" breezed Mark. Fine.
"Been managing with the, um, mortgage?"
Mortgage? What was that? "Er…"
"Good," said Mark briskly. "Now, listen, Rosie, I want you to help me. I'm on the verge of a big break here. Biggest of my life probably. Working on a massive story about, ahem, your friend Matt Locke…"
"He's
not
my friend," Rosie snapped, vehemently enough to stop her voice from shaking.
"Well, whatever he is. Now you know this film,
Farm Fatale—
Champagne D'Vyne's filming it at Ladymead and all that."
The walk home had been as long as it had been painful and the one conclusion Rosie had drawn was that nothing was now more dead to her than Ladymead and its inhabitant. Or inhabitants. Blanking them out altogether was the only way she could cope. "What makes you think I know anything about it?"
"Well, the postman mentioned having seen you going up there."
"So?"
"So I need help, Rosie," said Mark urgently. "Come on. Spill the beans. 'Fess up. Sing. Tell me what's happening with those two. You know. I
know
you know."
Oh, I know, thought Rosie, screwing up her face tightly against tears. I know, all right. In the back room of her brain, she realized what Mark was asking. For the dirt on Champagne and Matt. The gossip, tickled up with a spot of speculation. To give him this would, she reflected bitterly, be a neat enough revenge for Matt's treatment of her and for Champagne's arrogance. It would be a slap back, a salve for being told to toddle home, yeah, as her services were not required.
"Rosie? You still there?"
Rosie looked out of the window, her mind whirring and clicking with the possibilities. For she could give Mark even more than he bargained for. Much more. Everything Matt had told her about his past, for instance. His Rock-Star Hell. Well, it would certainly help with Her Rejected-and-Used Hell.
"
Lots
of money involved, Rosie," Mark whispered, trying not to think about the budget costs.
Rosie wavered. In ordinary circumstances, she would have slammed the phone down instantly, but these were not ordinary circumstances. Of course, it wasn't the kind of thing a nice girl like her did. But hadn't that been the problem all along? Too nice. Too understanding. Too romantic. Too gullible. She'd been too easy. Too lacking in self-respect. The desire for revenge rose within her. Matt had used and abused her unforgivably. What was stopping her from doing the same to him? No more Miss Nice Girl, thought Rosie, as the blood rushed noisily to her head. Looking at the receiver, she saw her knuckles were clenched white.
"Think of the power you have, Rosie…" Mark's persuasive whisper slithered, serpentlike, into the fast, red, whirling center of her thoughts.
Power
. Now
she
had the power. Matt had had power over her. He had made her love him. He had abused her. And
now…
"For old times' sake, Rosie," wheedled Mark, scenting closure.
In Rosie's nearly persuaded brain, something snapped. The whirling stopped.
"What did you say?" she gasped.
"Old times' sake," repeated Mark easily. "You know, the life we shared, hopes and dreams and all that."
Rosie's thoughts came slowly but very sharply into focus. Hopes and dreams? Yes, well,
she
had had hopes and dreams. The countryside, the cottage, a new life. And Mark had gone along with that. Not to please her, heaven forbid. Not because he loved her, for God's sake. But because it fitted with his ambitions at the time. That sodding column.
And now, again for career reasons, he had the cheek to invoke the memory of a relationship he had put up with only because it had suited him. He, too, had thrown her over when it didn't. Hold on, Rosie thought. Just
who
is being gullible here? Being used?
"Old times' sake?" she screeched into the receiver. "Old bloody times' sake? Are you joking? I'd do it for practically anything. But I won't do it for that."
"Come on, Rosie—"
"
No comment
," Rosie yelled as she hurled the phone down. "No bloody comment."
***
Shouting at Mark made her feel marginally better. A dull calm descended, relief from the stinging pain of earlier. Her head felt oddly clear.
Dully, she realized she had to leave the cottage. And the village. Eight Mile Bottom was finally over for her. Cinder Lane was finished.
Coming out of the door and looking up the street, she saw she was not far wrong. The Muzzles had dragged out what seemed like the entire contents of their sitting room onto the road. Blathnat and Satchel were bouncing manically up and down on a sunken floral sofa. A broken armchair slumped nearby, and another child Rosie did not recognize was riding a coffee table up and down the lane. Its castors roared against the tarmac.
"We're going to have a painting party," Satchel yelled. "We're doing up the lounge. It's going to go on all night."
Of all Rosie's regrets concerning Cinder Lane, the keenest, just then, was that Mark was not present to witness the truly fearsome sight of all the Muzzle furniture on the street. Arthur and Guinevere's sofa would, she knew, have driven him into a rage; the ambulant coffee table possibly to a nervous breakdown.
As the only destination up the lane was Spitewinter, Rosie turned sharply down it, almost colliding as she did so with a tall, vague-looking woman wandering up in a billowing floral dress. She wore a straw hat festooned with flowers and ribbons; surely, Rosie thought, not someone going to the Muzzles' painting party? As she turned the corner, Rosie looked back and watched the woman float dreamily through the assorted shattered soft furnishings and head up the lane to the farm.
Then Rosie realized. Of course. Another glossy country- magazine reader who had written to Jack. And someone, Rosie thought sardonically, watching the receding frills and florals, with an even more romantic idea of the countryside than hers had originally been. A thousand million years ago. Passing Mrs. Womersley's windows and noticing the old lady standing there, purse-lipped and scribbling vigorously into a notebook, Rosie's suspicions were confirmed. She was amazed to see Mrs. Womersley wave at her. Still, thought Rosie, I'm probably imagining things now. As if to confirm this, the church clock, showing two, struck a wobbly nine.
It had reached twenty-one as Rosie marched, head down, firmly up the High Street and quickly past The Bottoms lest Iseult spot her. She had no idea where she was going. Just that she had to go.
"Hello there." As she passed the Barley Mow, a cheery voice broke through the haze like sunshine. Alan the landlord was sitting on the paved terrace at the front of the pub enjoying a late and delicious-looking lunch of fish pie, peas, and chips. Rosie's stomach rumbled as she tried to work out how long it had been since she had eaten.
"Coming to Talent Night?" Alan called. "Everyone in the village is taking part. Going to be a good 'un."
Rosie, forcing a smile, shook her head. "Don't think so. I don't have any talent."
"Don't be daft, you're an artist, aren't you?" Alan rubbed his chin, his brows contracting. "Then again, difficult to do that on a stage, I suppose. Can you sing though? Or play anything? Your chance to be a rock star, this is."
Rosie flinched. "Don't think I'm that type."
"Rubbish. Everyone's got a rock star in them."
But not me, thought Rosie, torn between tears and laughter and opting for a watery smile. Not anymore.
"We've got the headmistress on the organ and the local school inspector in drag singing Marilyn Monroe," Alan continued. "I've put them next to each other in the running order, so that should be interesting. You know they don't get on, don't you?"
"Something about a cat, wasn't it?"
Alan nodded, his cheek bulging with chips. "We've got the plumber doing Lionel Ritchie," he added, waving his fork. "The milkman's playing the triangle and the postman's on the tin whistle. Oh, and the builder's doing 'Another Brick in the Wall.'"
Rosie smiled, remembering Bella reading out the results of the last Talent Night in the village newsletter. Her smile faded as she remembered that directly after that had come the fatal conversation in which Bella had encouraged her, nay,
insisted
, she go after Matt. What a great idea
that
had been.
"Plenty of opportunity for latecomers to sign up," persisted Alan. "You any good on maracas?"
Chapter Twenty-five
Weeding furiously in the garden later that afternoon, Rosie wondered why she was bothering. It wasn't as if she would be here to see the results of her labors. Who knew where she would be when next year's bulbs came poking out of the dark earth like the blades of green knives? As soon as the weekend was over, she planned to go to see Nigel at Kane, Birch & Spankie and put Number 2 Cinder Lane back on the market.
Lost in thought and the tearing of dandelion stems, Rosie thought she could hear a voice. Was it speaking to her? She looked up to see Dora Womersley peering over the wall.
The old lady was smiling and holding a tomato plant rather nervously. "Thought you might like this," she said, stretching out her liver-spotted hand with its bundle of leaves and earth.
Rosie hesitated, then took it. Might as well let bygones be bygones. Everything would be bygones soon. "Thanks," she said. "Everything all right?" she added.