Daisy Waugh - Ten Steps to Happiness

Messy’s financial status didn’t matter, Jo said. She explained – and it was one of the few things the Fiddleford Four had all agreed on – that guests’ rates depended on their ability to pay, and on the income she could draw (and split down the middle) from any exclusive interview deals she arranged. ‘I’ve been a senior partner [only a minor exaggeration] in one of the top public relations firms in London for over ten years. In fact we’ve met. We actually worked together on a couple of P.A.s a few years ago…But perhaps you don’t remember.’

‘Oh really?’ said Messy, trying politely to muster some enthusiasm but still sounding miserable, as she always did when people reminded her of her past. ‘Which ones?’

‘Anyway we can talk about that when you get down here,’ said Jo, realising it wasn’t helping. ‘Messy, I expect the last thing you want to think about right now is giving any more interviews—’

‘Ha! You’re right there.’

‘Exactly. And you see the point of your staying here would be twofold. Partly, just to get a break from the madness, so to speak…’

Messy laughed grudgingly. She knew she was being manipulated, possibly even slightly patronised. But for once she didn’t care. She was so tired of making decisions for herself. They were always the wrong ones. And Jo seemed to know exactly what to say and do. She was making Messy feel better than she had in days.

‘—And partly so I can help you turn this publicity around; launch what I always call a damage-limitation counterattack.’ Messy laughed again. ‘Any interviews you do decide to give would be very, very carefully handled. I can negotiate the deal, ensure we have copy approval, sit in on the interview. And so on. I hate to blow my own trumpet, Messy, but I do have a great deal of experience in this area.’

‘I bloody well hope you do. So who else have you had to stay down there?’

‘One of the most essential components of this sanctuary,’ said Jo (she had prepared this one earlier), ‘is secrecy. Obviously…’

‘Yes. I suppose so.’

‘So though there’s nothing I’d love to do more than to reel off a long list of names, I can’t. I just can’t. Basically, Messy, all I can say is – if you’re not happy with the service we provide then don’t pay us! Simple as that! This operation has got to work on trust. That’s very important. We’ve got to trust you and you’ve got to trust us…’

‘Hm…’ said Messy, pretending she wasn’t already convinced.

‘We can send a car to come and pick you up right away. We could be there in three or four hours…’

‘Hm…’

‘And we’ve just bought a donkey, which might entertain Chloe.’

The car from Fiddleford arrived at Messy’s door seven and a half hours later. Les, the farm hand, had forgotten to take a map and, for reasons known only to himself, had rejected the offer of Charlie and Jo’s more comfortable car and taken instead the old Land Rover, which was filthy and could never go above forty miles an hour. He’d also, poor fellow, managed to get lost four times on the same stretch of motorway before finally taking the right exit.

Messy gabbled jovially as she and Chloe clambered into the Land Rover, fighting their way between horses’ head collars, bits of bind-a-twine, stray potatoes gone to seed, and piles of empty paper sacks. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘that the state of this car isn’t any sort of indicator of what’s to come!’ The truth was, after such a long wait, she was relieved to see any car at all. ‘You know I hadn’t even taken a number for Fiddlefrom. Fiddleforth. I was beginning to wonder if the whole conversation hadn’t been a dream!’

Les looked at her morosely for a while, only faintly noticing that she had been talking, and certainly not expecting to make a response. Suddenly his face lit up. ‘Well I never!’ he said. ‘But you’re that fat lady off of the TELLY!’

‘Of course I am. Who did you think I was?’

‘I SAW YOU ON TELLY!’

‘Did you watch Question Time?’

‘A few nights back, it was. I don’t know why. A bit like one o’ them quizzie things.’

She’d been without any adult company, brooding solidly, ever since the BBC car had dropped her back at the cottage, and now here was a friendly face. Well, a face. It was all she needed. She couldn’t stop herself. ‘Didn’t you think Morrison was a creep? Or have I lost perspective on this? I mean – honestly, Les. Tell me honestly. Was I being paranoid? Was he exploiting my situation?…I felt so incredibly patronised…’

Les gazed at her long and hard before slowly turning away to start the engine. In the four hours it took to return to Fiddleford he didn’t speak another word. Chloe fell asleep.

It was eleven o’clock by the time they arrived.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Jo nervously, rushing out of the house to greet her. ‘You must be exhausted. Les wasn’t – Les, why didn’t you call? You left the map behind. We’ve been worried to death.’

‘I don’t like maps.’

‘For Heaven’s sake!’ Until she came to Fiddleford Jo hadn’t really believed such stupid people actually existed. She sighed with the usual mixture of boredom and exasperation that overcame her when dealing with Les’s ‘working’ methods. ‘Les, you can’t not like maps. There’s nothing not to like about them.’ She sighed again, and was preparing (professional as always) to deliver an easy-to-understand discourse on the subject, when Grey, Charlie and the General came wandering out to join them. ‘Oh look, here are the others,’ she said with relief. ‘This is Grey…Grey, this is Messy. And Chloe…Who’s actually asleep, poor little mite…’

Grey shook Messy’s free hand without a great deal of interest but then seemed to reconsider, and bent down to scrutinise her more closely. ‘Oh!’ he said, pleasantly surprised. ‘You look much better than you do in the pictures.’

‘Depends which pictures,’ Messy muttered grumpily, but she blushed. It was the nearest thing she’d had to a compliment for a long time. ‘They tend to choose the ugly ones.’ She looked up at him with a smile. ‘You’re not so bad-looking yourself.’

‘Aye,’ he said, relinquishing her hand, gazing at her curiously. ‘It’s been said.’

‘And, er – Messy, this is my husband, Charlie.’

‘Hello, Messy. Welcome to Fiddleford,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re our first guest, as I expect Jo explained. So I hope you won’t be too disappointed if things don’t run perfectly straight away—’

‘And this,’ said Jo quickly, ‘is my father-in-law, General Maxwell McDonald.’

‘Crikey,’ said Messy doubtfully.

The General stepped smartly forward, determined to present a good face, however he might have been feeling. ‘But most people just call me General,’ he said, bowing slightly to avoid eye contact. ‘Well come in, come in, for Heaven’s sake. Somebody get the child to bed and then perhaps Miss Monroe would like a drink?’

They walked together into the hall. Messy looked up at the large gilt chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and then at the magnificent mahogany staircase sweeping up to the landing thirty-five feet above her head.

‘Crikey,’ she said again.

Weighed down by the child and still enormous, even in these vast surroundings, Messy looked very ill at ease standing there. It reminded Jo of the first time she came to Fiddleford, when in spite of all her kneejerk disapproval (of inherited wealth and environmentally unsound houses) this hall had still intimidated her. ‘I know it’s large,’ she whispered apologetically, ‘but we don’t actually heat the rooms we don’t use. And of course,’ (she lied, entirely unnecessarily. But she was nervous) ‘we grow all our own vegetables.’