“But even if she wasn’t your friend and mentor?”
Alex is silent, his face taut, as we bump over a hillocky patch of ground. Then he sighs. “OK. You got me. I’m not cut out to be a boss.”
“I didn’t say that!” I say, dismayed. “That’s not what I meant—”
“It’s true, though,” he interrupts. “This management stuff—I hate it. It’s not me. I should never have taken on the role.”
I drive on, feeling a bit speechless. The famous Alex Astalis feels insecure about his job?
“Have you ever shaken up a compass and seen the arrow whirling around, trying to find a place to settle?” says Alex abruptly. “Well, that’s my brain. It’s all over the place.”
“Demeter’s like that,” I volunteer. “Totally scattershot.”
“If you think Demeter’s bad, I’m ten times worse.” Alex gives me a wry grin. “But bosses aren’t like that. They’re focused. They can compartmentalize. They like process. And long tedious meetings.” He shudders. “Everything I hate, bosses love. Yet here I am, a boss.”
“No one likes long, tedious meetings,” I protest. “Even bosses.”
“OK, maybe not all bosses do,” he allows. “But a lot of manager types do. Biscuit people do.”
“Biscuit people?” I snort with laughter.
“That’s what I call them. They come into the meeting room and sit down and take a biscuit and plop back with this air of contentment, like Well, life can’t get any better than this, can it? It’s as though they’re settling in for a long-haul flight and they’re pretty chuffed to get the legroom and who cares what else goes on?”
I grin. “So you’re not a biscuit person.”
“I never even sit down at meetings.” Alex looks abashed. “It drives everyone mad. And I can’t deal with conflict. I can’t manage people. It bores me. It gets in the way of ideas. And that’s why I shouldn’t be a boss.” He sighs, gazing out of the window at the passing landscape. “Every promotion requires you to do less of the thing you originally wanted to do. Don’t you find?”
“No,” I say bluntly. “If I got a promotion I’d do more of the thing I want to do. But, then, I’m at the opposite end from you.”
Alex winces. “That makes me sound ancient.”
“You are ancient. In prodigy years.”
“Prodigy years?” Alex starts to laugh. “Is that like dog years? Anyway, who says I’m a prodigy?”
“You came up with Whenty when you were twenty-one,” I remind him.
“Oh yeah,” he says, as though he’d half-forgotten. “Well, that was just…you know. Luck.” He comes to. “Shall I get that gate?”
I watch as he unhooks the gate, then drive through and wait for him to close it and hop back in. The engine’s still running, but for a moment I don’t move. We’re in a kind of limbo-land here, and I want to broach something with Alex, while I have the chance.
“Was it really luck?” I say tentatively. “Or do you think maybe you were trying to impress your father?”
I want to add: Is that why you can’t stand conflict? But let’s not turn into Freud.
Alex is silent for a few minutes, and I can see thoughts buzzing round his eyes.
“Probably,” he says at last. “Probably still am.” Then he turns to me, with a wry acknowledging smile. “Will you stop being right?”
I grin back—touché—and start driving on again. I sense that Alex might carry on unburdening himself, and, sure enough, after a few moments he draws breath.
“Sometimes I worry my ideas might dry up,” he says, an odd tone to his voice. “I’m not sure who I’d be without them. Sometimes I think I’m really just an empty vessel floating about, downloading ideas and not much else.”
“You’re a funny, gorgeous, sexy guy,” I say at once, and he smiles at me as though I’m joking. I can tell he’s not pretending: He really feels this. I can’t believe I need to bolster Alex Astalis.
“What would you do,” I say impulsively, “if you weren’t rushing round the world, creating award-winning branding concepts?”
“Good question.” Alex’s face lights up. “Live on a farm. Drive the Defender. That was the best fun I’ve had in years. Eat Biddy’s scones.” We come to a halt in the yard, and Alex twines his fingers around mine on the steering wheel. “Kiss a beautiful girl every day.”
“You’d have to find a farm with a beautiful girl on it,” I point out.
“Don’t they all come with beautiful girls?” His dark eyes glow at me. “This one does.”
Beautiful. That word again. I want to take it away in my hands and keep it in a jar forever. But instead I smile easily back, as if perhaps I didn’t even hear him, and say, “Not all of them, no.”
“I’d put it in the search engine, then. En suite bathroom, fields of sheep, beautiful girl with freckles like stardust.” He touches my nose. “Actually, I think there is only one of those.”
He leans over to kiss me—and there he is again. The sweet, gentle Alex that’s been such a surprise. The truth is, I’m falling for this guy, and I can’t find a single reason in my brain not to, except for Demeter’s voice running through my mind: Any woman who got involved with Alex Astalis would have to be insane.
Why insane? I need to talk to her.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be a boss anymore,” I say as we finally draw apart, my head buzzing a little. “I’m not sure it’s making you happy.”
“Maybe you’re right.” He nods, his eyes absent—then suddenly focuses on me. “Whereas you, Katie, should be a boss. You will be, one day. I know it. You’ll be a big boss.”
“What?” I stare at him in disbelief.
“Oh yes.” He nods matter-of-factly. “You’ve got what it takes. Stuff I haven’t got. You’ve got a way with people. I watched you just now, managing your cleaner. You know what you want and you make it happen and nothing gets broken. There’s a skill in that.”
I gaze back at Alex, feeling a bit overcome. No one’s ever said anything like that to me before, and my insecure, defensive hackles can’t help rising: Is he just being kind? But he doesn’t look like he’s trying to do me a favor. There’s not one patronizing note in his voice—he sounds like he’s saying it as he sees it.
“Come on.” He opens the door. “I can’t put off the evil moment anymore. Let’s see if Demeter’s back.”
—
I’m half-hoping Demeter will be at the farmhouse already, will greet us with her old Demeter panache and stride around on her long legs with some story about how she’s fixed everything and spoken to Adrian and it’s all marvelous now. But there’s no sign of her.
The afternoon’s golden glow has ebbed away, and Dad’s already got a campfire going at the center of the yurt village. On Tuesday nights we always have a campfire, sausages, toasted marshmallows, and a singsong. Everyone loves a fire and a singsong after a few beers—even though the actual songs we sing depend on who the glampers are. (One time we had a guy staying who’d been a backing singer for Sting. That was amazing. But last week we had the I-know-all-of-Queen’s-repertoire-listen-to-me! dad. That was bad.)
Biddy is walking along the path, lighting lanterns as she goes, and she looks up with a smile as I approach.
“Hi,” I say breathlessly. “Have you seen Demeter?”
“Demeter? No, love. I thought she’d gone to London.”
“She did. But I thought she might be back….” I sigh anxiously, then glance at Alex. He’s standing on the edge of the yurt village, already scowling miserably at his phone. He must be picking up his emails.
“Look, there’s nothing you can do for now,” I say, tapping his shoulder. “Why not come and sit by the campfire and…you know. Relax?”
The campfire usually brings out the inner child in people, and I’m hoping it might appeal to the quirky, playful side of Alex that I love. As we sit down on the grass, the flames cast an orange flickering light on his face. The familiar crackle-and-spit sound of the fire instantl
y calms my nerves, and the smell is like every bonfire night I’ve ever known. I turn to see if he’s enjoying it too—but his face is still tense and preoccupied. Bearing in mind the situation, I can’t really blame him.
On the plus side, everyone else seems to be having fun. All the glampers are toasting marshmallows, leaning forward with their toasting irons. Occasionally Giles throws a firelighter onto the fire to get an extra-large flame, and I lean politely over to him.
“Actually…that’s a bit dangerous for the children?”
“Only a bit of fun,” he says, but stops and swigs his beer and I breathe out. The last thing we need is some monster flame singeing someone’s eyebrows. I mean, we do have enormous buckets of water placed at strategic points, but even so.
On the other side of the fire there seems to be a bit of jostling and dispute going on.
“Stop it!” exclaims Susie suddenly, and I realize a full-scale row is breaking out. “No one else can get a look in!” she’s saying heatedly to Cleo. “Your children have pinched all the best places, all the toasting irons….”
“For heaven’s sake,” says Cleo in her drawling way. “It’s a campfire. Relax.”
“I’ll relax when my children can toast marshmallows as well as yours—”
“Here we go! Here we go now!” Dad’s cheerful voice penetrates the atmosphere, and we all look up to see him skipping into view with a jingle-jingle sound. He’s wearing white trousers, a waistcoat, jingle bells attached to his legs, and sticks in his hands. Accordion music is playing from a CD player plonked on the grass. “La-la-la…” He starts singing some random line or other. “La-la-la…And-a-one-and-a-two…”
“Farmer Mick!” shriek the children as though he’s a celebrity. “Farmer Mick!”
I clap a hand over my mouth, trying not to laugh. Dad’s been talking about Morris dancing, but I didn’t think he’d actually do it. I mean, what the hell does he know about Morris dancing?
He’s still humming an indistinct tune and skipping about, and every so often he bangs his sticks. You couldn’t call it dancing. More…capering. The grown-ups are watching as if they’re not sure if it’s a joke or not, but the children are all whooping and cheering.
“Who’s going to be my assistant?” Dad whips a bell-covered stick from his waistcoat and proffers it at the children. “Who wants to join the dance?”
“Me!” they all shout, grabbing for the bell stick. “Meeeeee!”
I can see Poppy standing up eagerly. She’s the little girl who’s here with her single dad, and she seems really sweet. But Cleo at once pushes Harley forward.
“Harley, you dance, darling. Harley does ballet and jazz dance and Stagecoach every Saturday—”
“For God’s sake, give it a rest!” Susie explodes. “Poppy, why don’t you dance, sweetheart?”
“Give what a rest?” demands Cleo, sounding offended. “I’m simply pointing out that my child is a trained dancer….”
I catch Dad’s eye and he gets my drift at once.
“Everybody dance!” he bellows. “All the kiddies up! And-a-one-and-a-two-and-a—”
“Katie.” A voice in my ear makes me turn, and I see Demeter’s son, Hal, at my side.
“Hi, Hal!” I greet him. “Have you toasted a marshmallow yet?” Then I look more closely at him. He’s pale and blinking hard. “Hal,” I say urgently. “What’s happened? What’s up?”
“It’s Coco.” He looks a bit desperate. “She’s…she’s drunk.”
—
Thankfully she made it out of the yurt in time. I find her retching into a nearby patch of grass and put a comforting arm around her whilst simultaneously averting my eyes and thinking, Urgh. Gross. Hurry up.
When she seems a bit better, I lead her over to the outdoor shower. I’m not going to drench her—even though it’s tempting—but instead I dampen a sponge and clean her up a bit, then get her back to the yurt.
I mean, it could be worse. She could be comatose. As it is, she’s able to walk and talk, and there’s already a bit of color returning to her cheeks. She’ll live.
“Sorry,” she keeps saying in a mumbly voice. “I’m so sorry.”
As we get into the yurt, I flinch at the sight. So this is what happens when two teenagers are left to their own devices for a day. There are plates and crumbs everywhere—they must have been raiding Biddy’s larder—plus sweet wrappers, phones, an iPad, magazines, makeup…and, sitting in the middle of it all, a half-empty bottle of vodka. Nice.
I put Coco into bed, prop her up against a mound of pillows, then sit on the bed. I gesture at the vodka bottle and sigh. “Why?”
“Dunno,” says Coco, with a defensive, sulky shrug. “I was bored.”
Bored. I look at the magazines and the iPad. I think about the campfire and the marshmallows and Dad capering like a mad thing, just to entertain everyone. I think about Demeter, working her socks off to pay for Jack Wills hoodies.
I should have taken bloody Coco to muck out the stable, that’s what I should have done.
“Where did you get it?”
“Brought it. Are you going to tell Mum?” Coco’s voice quickens with worry.
“I don’t know.” I give her a stern look. “You know, your mum really loves you. She works super-hard to pay for all your cool stuff. And you’re not that nice to her.”
“We said thank you for the holiday,” says Coco in a defensive way.
“What, so that’s it, you say ‘thank you’ once and you’re quits? And what’s this ‘Mrs. Invisible’ crap I keep hearing? If there’s one thing your mum’s not, it’s invisible. And you know what? It’s hurtful. Really hurtful.”
I can see Coco and Hal exchanging guilty looks. I think they’re actually quite nice kids; they’ve just got into a bad habit of being down on their mum. And their dad hasn’t been helping. But he’s not here right now.
And then a new thought hits me. If Demeter’s managed to hide all her best qualities from her own staff, she’s probably done the same with her kids too.
“Listen,” I say. “Do you even know what your mum does at work?”
“Branding,” says Coco, so tonelessly that I know it’s just a word to her.
“OK. And do you know how awesome she is at it? Do you know how clever and bright and brilliant she is?”
Both Coco and Hal look vacant. Clearly this thought has never passed through their brains.
“How do you know about my mum’s work?” queries Hal.
“I used to work in the same area. And, believe me, your mum is a legend. A legend.”
I pat the bed, and after a moment Hal comes to sit down. I feel like I’m telling the pair of them a bedtime story. Once upon a time there was a scary monster called Demeter, only she wasn’t really scary after all. Or a monster.
“Your mum’s full of ideas,” I tell them. “She’s bursting with them. She sees a packaging design and she instantly knows what’s wrong or right with it.”
“Yeah,” says Coco, rolling her eyes. “We know. You go round the supermarket and she’s got an opinion on, like, every single box.”
“Right. So, did you know she’s won a stack of awards for those opinions? Did you know that she can inspire big teams of people to do amazing work? She can take a whole bunch of ideas and distill them into a concept, and as soon as she says it you think, Yes.”
I glance up, and they’re both listening intently.
“Your mum can bring a room to life,” I continue. “She makes people think. You can’t be lazy when she’s around. She’s original, she’s inspiring…she’s inspired me. I wouldn’t be who I am without her.”
I said that more for effect than anything else—but as the words hit the air, I realize I mean them. If it weren’t for Demeter, I wouldn’t have learned everything that I have. I wouldn’t have created the Ansters Farm brochure and website in the same way. We might not have taken off.
“You’re very lucky to have her as your mum,” I conclude. “And I know, because I don?
??t have a mum.”
“Isn’t Biddy your mum?” Coco looks puzzled.
“She’s my stepmum. And she wasn’t around when I was younger. I grew up with no mum, so I was especially observant. I looked at everyone else’s mums. And yours is one of the best. She’s having a really tough time at work right now, did you know that?” I add.
Coco and Hal look at me dumbly. Of course they didn’t know. Another trouble with Demeter, I’m realizing, is her instinct to protect others. Protect Rosa from knowing she was rejected. Protect her kids from knowing she’s stressed. Keep up the charmed, life-is-perfect myth.
Well, enough. These kids aren’t toddlers; they can bloody well support her.
“Maybe she hasn’t told you.” I shrug. “But take it from me, things are difficult. And the way you can help is to be charming and appreciative and keep this yurt tidy and not ask for stuff or complain or get pissed on vodka.”
I eye Coco, and she looks away.
“I won’t,” she mumbles, so indistinctly I can barely hear her.
“I’ll tidy up the yurt,” volunteers Hal, who seems eager to make amends.
“Great.” I stand up to leave. “And, Hal, keep an eye on Coco. Do not leave her. Any problems, you come and get me or the nearest grown-up. I’ll be back in half an hour to check on you. OK?”
Hal nods vigorously. “OK.”
“Are you going to tell Mum?” Coco’s plaintive voice comes from the bed. “Please?”
Her face is pale and she’s lost that annoying, sulky chin-jut she often has. She actually looks about ten years old. But I’m not letting her off the hook that easily.
“Depends,” I say, and push my way out of the yurt.
—
As I’m walking across the field, I come upon Dad, sitting alone on a bench, sipping a can of beer. His Farmer Mick hat is off, his bells are lying silent by his side, and he looks exhausted.
“Hi, Dad.” I sit down beside him.
“Hi, love.” He turns to look at me, his eyes crinkling in affection. “Where did you go rushing off to just now?”
“Coco.” I roll my eyes. “Drank too much. I had to sort her out.”