‘She? Oh, I’m sorry. I understood the house belonged to a Mr Jago Crewe.’
‘Good day,’ said Mrs Drummond briskly. Tish heard the front door slam. A moment later, Mrs D reappeared in the kitchen looking flustered.
‘What on earth was all that about?’ asked Tish.
‘Oh, nothing. Some dreadful American woman.’ Mrs Drummond shook her head in disgust. ‘Very pushy. She’s gone now.’
‘Well, what did she want?’
‘Want? I’ll tell you what she wanted. She wanted to buy the manor! Can you imagine the cheek of it? She kept saying Loxley was “perfect” and she had to have it. As if it were a scarf she’d seen in a shop window! I told her the house wasn’t for sale, and that she was trespassing, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer, cheeky little thing. Kept asking to talk to … oh my good gracious!’
Tish followed Mrs Drummond’s gaze to the kitchen window. A dark-haired girl had her face pressed to the glass. She was smiling and waving, apparently trying to get Tish’s attention.
‘There she is again.’ Picking up a broom, Mrs Drummond waved it at the window as if she were trying to scare away a bat. ‘Shoo! Get out!’
Tish giggled. She’d had precious few laughs recently, but this was like a scene from a Carry On film. ‘I think I should go and talk to her.’
‘Talk to her? Don’t be silly, Letitia. The woman’s plainly a lunatic.’
Watching Mrs Drummond jabbing her broom at the window, Tish thought it debatable who was the lunatic. Unbolting the scullery door, she walked out into the kitchen garden.
‘Can I help you?’
The girl stepped away from the window. She was extremely pretty, Tish noticed, with a mane of glossy, dark hair that shone like a Herbal Essences advertisement. She was also woefully underdressed for the Derbyshire spring weather, in a thin white cotton blouse, fringed suede miniskirt and bare legs. She looked like an extremely lost Pocahontas.
‘Are you the owner?’ she asked, extending an elegant, French-manicured hand.
‘Sort of,’ said Tish. ‘Not exactly. It’s a bit complicated. I’m Letitia Crewe.’
‘Rainbow,’ said the girl, shaking hands warmly.
‘That’s your name?’ said Tish, realizing too late how rude it sounded. Luckily, the girl didn’t seem to mind.
‘I know,’ she grinned. ‘What can I say? My parents were Californian hippies. Still are. I actually have a sister called Sunshine, believe it or not.’
Not sure how she was supposed to react to this piece of information, Tish said nothing.
‘Look, do you mind if I come in?’ said Rainbow, breaking the silence. ‘I’ve got a business proposal I’d like to make you and it is super-cold out here.’
Five minutes later, having convinced a deeply suspicious Mrs Drummond to go into Castleton and leave the two of them alone, Tish made a pot of Lapsang tea and sat down with Rainbow at the kitchen table.
‘So, what’s this all about?’
‘Simple,’ said Rainbow. ‘I want your house.’
‘Oh.’ Tish looked disappointed. ‘I’m sorry but, as I think my housekeeper explained, Loxley isn’t for sale. It’s been in my family for centuries.’
‘Oh, I know that,’ said Rainbow, taking a sip of her tea and almost gagging. It tasted like burned rubber. ‘I don’t want to buy it. I want to borrow it.’
Tish brightened. ‘Lease it, you mean?’ Though she hadn’t intended on doing it so soon, it was certainly part of her plan to find a reliable, paying tenant for Loxley eventually. Admittedly, she hadn’t pictured this person as a squaw-like twenty-something American hippy named Rainbow, but that was no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth.
‘Not exactly,’ said Rainbow. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a business card and handed it to Tish.
‘FSL Location Scouts,’ Tish read aloud. ‘You work for a film company?’
‘We work for a bunch of film companies,’ said Rainbow. ‘Right now I’m working for one of the biggest directors in Hollywood. You’ve heard of Dorian Rasmirez of course?’
Tish looked blank.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Rainbow incredulously. ‘Love and Regrets? Sixteen Days?’ In Rainbow’s world, not having heard of Dorian Rasmirez was like not knowing the Pope or the President of the United States.
‘I don’t go to the cinema very often,’ said Tish.
‘Well, take my word for it, Rasmirez is huge. He’s about to shoot a remake of Wuthering Heights.’
‘Oh,’ said Tish, ‘I adore that book! How wonderful.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Rainbow. ‘His production company, Dracula, hired my company to find him a suitable location for the shoot. I think this place would be perfect as Thrushcross Grange.’
‘Really?’ For a moment, Tish was flattered. But reality quickly kicked in. Loxley was already in a serious state of disrepair. The last thing it needed was a film crew running around the place, lugging heavy equipment and ricocheting off the furniture. Tish remembered reading a horror story in one of the Sunday papers about the damage done to stately homes used in film shoots. Groombridge Place in Kent had apparently taken months to restore after Pride and Prejudice.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said hesitantly to Rainbow. ‘What would it involve?’
‘Well, we’d need the complete run of the house. You’d have to move out. And we’d want to start filming as soon as possible, next week ideally. I know Mr Rasmirez’s budget is pretty tight on this project, so the actors, cast and crew would all live here during the shoot, or as many of them as we can squeeze in anyway—’
‘Let me stop you there,’ said Tish. ‘I’m afraid there’s no way I would consider moving out.’ Memories of Jago’s squatter friends were still fresh in her mind. A few more weeks and the damage they caused to Loxley might have been irreparable.
Rainbow hesitated. Normally it was an absolute prerequisite that a location be empty before filming could begin. Partly for insurance purposes, and partly because directors typically did not take kindly to having nervous homeowners getting under their feet, complaining about their work and generally making a nuisance of themselves. But in this case, it might be the lesser of two evils. Rainbow had presented Dorian with dozens of locations over the past three months, and he’d rejected all of them. He was desperate to start shooting, but his list of specifications was insanely specific and his willingness to compromise nil. Not only was Loxley literally perfect as the Grange, but the farm over the hill might just work as their Wuthering Heights too (L-shaped, grey stone, forbidding, isolated). Rainbow couldn’t afford to let Tish say no.
‘Well, we could talk about that,’ she said vaguely. ‘You might not have to move. Did I mention that the movie stars Viorel Hudson? I sure wouldn’t mind sharing a house with him.’ She winked conspiratorially, but if dropping Vio’s name had been intended as an incentive, it failed miserably.
‘Viorel Hudson?’ Tish struggled to place the name. ‘Wasn’t he that Romanian boy, the one that Martha Hudson adopted in the eighties? Is he an actor now, then?’
‘Just a little bit,’ said Rainbow. She tried a different tack. ‘Of course, you’d be well compensated.’
This approach was much more effective.
‘How well?’ said Tish. In her mind she began drawing lines: She wouldn’t do it for less than seventy-five thousand. It wasn’t worth the risk to the building. Or maybe fifty thousand should be the cutoff?
‘I’d have to talk to my client before I could give you a final number,’ said Rainbow. ‘But it would be somewhere in the region of a hundred thousand.’
‘A hundred thousand. Dollars?’
‘Sterling. Per week.’
‘Per week?’ Tish’s voice had suddenly gone up an octave. ‘I see. And how many, er … how many weeks would you, er … would you want the, er …?’
‘A minimum of eight,’ said Rainbow. ‘Possibly twelve. Depends on a bunch of factors – how soon we could start being the main one.’
Tis
h struggled to conceal her elation. A hundred grand a week, for a minimum of eight weeks! That was almost enough to put them back in the black. She wouldn’t have to sell Home Farm, not this year anyway. Even better, if they started shooting right away, she could be back in Romania by the end of the summer. The thought of returning to Oradea to face Michel and Fleur in person filled her with dread. But the longer she postponed it, the worse she knew it would get. The kids need me, she told herself. I can’t hide out here forever. Curcubeu won’t run itself. For the first time she realized that the girl’s name was Rainbow – the same name as her children’s home. Maybe her coming here was a sign?
Rainbow pulled out her BlackBerry and started making notes. ‘Do you happen to know the name of your neighbours who own that farm over the hill?’
‘Home Farm?’ said Tish.
‘I guess. I only saw one house over there, grey, kinda ugly? If you could convince whoever owns it to let us shoot there too, we’d pay you a commission fee over and above whatever you make on this place.’
‘Actually, Home Farm belongs to the Loxley estate.’
Rainbow beamed. ‘It does?’
Thinking on her feet, Tish added, ‘Yes. But filming there might be a little trickier. It’s a working farm, you see, with sitting tenants. We rely on them to provide a large part of our income –’ about sixty-eight pence last year –‘and the summer months are a very important time. I don’t know if I’d be comfortable, what with all the upheaval—’
‘We’ll double the fee,’ said Rainbow, not batting an eyelid.
Tish suddenly felt faint. Double eight hundred. That was one point six million.
‘Interesting,’ she squeaked. ‘Well, I’ll, er, I’ll certainly think about it. Perhaps you’d better speak to your client. Mr Ramon, was it?’
‘Rasmirez,’ said Rainbow. Was this girl for real?
‘Exactly. Let’s see what Mr Rasmirez says. When you’re in a position to make me a firm offer, we’ll talk again.’
‘We sure will,’ said Rainbow. ‘Is it OK if I take some pictures before I go?’
Mrs Drummond arrived back from Castleton just as Rainbow was leaving. They passed one another on the drive, Rainbow waving excitedly as she sped past, oblivious to the housekeeper’s frosty glare.
‘You got rid of her, then?’ said Mrs Drummond, staggering into the kitchen weighed down with Waitrose bags.
‘Mrs D!’ Relieving her of the groceries, Tish picked her up and twirled her around like an excited child.
‘Good heavens, Letitia. What are you doing?’ she protested. ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘Not yet,’ said Tish triumphantly. ‘But that’s an excellent idea. Do we have any champagne in the cellar?’
‘Champagne?’ the housekeeper frowned. ‘It’s one o’clock in the afternoon.’
‘I know,’ said Tish. Setting Mrs Drummond on the floor, she suddenly felt terribly emotional. Before she knew it, her eyes were welling up with tears.
‘Darling, whatever’s the matter?’ Mrs Drummond put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Was it that horrid American girl? Did she upset you?’
Tish shook her head. ‘She saved us, Mrs D. She saved Loxley. It’s going to be all right after all.’
PART TWO
CHAPTER NINE
‘I’m not asking for directions again, OK? I am not doing it.’
Chuck MacNamee folded his bulging arms across his broad chest with an air of finality. A fifty-seven-year-old ex-marine, Chuck did not, as he was fond of telling his fellow crew members, ‘take any shit.’ He’d worked in the film business for fifteen years as a driver/set builder/security guard/jack of all trades, ever since he got out of prison (a small matter of a credit fraud and a particularly humourless judge), and Dorian Rasmirez had given him the chance that no one else would, hiring him as a runner on Love and Regrets. Fanatically loyal to Dorian, and generally beloved on set as a good-natured practical joker, even Chuck had his limits.
He’d spent the last four hours trying to drive an articulated lorry through country lanes so narrow they’d have been hard pressed to accommodate an overweight donkey. He’d already stopped twice to ask directions from old men with impenetrable accents, and each time he’d been sent still deeper into the wilds of rural Derbyshire. And, throughout this wild goose chase, he’d been harangued every five minutes by Deborah Raynham, a twenty-two-year-old ‘cameraperson’, Christ preserve us, who kept sighing and mumbling, ‘If you’d only look at the map…’ under her breath.
They had now reached a T-junction in a ridiculously pretty village, tantalizingly called ‘Loxley’. But was there a sign to Loxley Hall? Was there a sign to anywhere? Was there fuck.
‘Fine,’ said Deborah, flinging the crumpled Ordnance Survey map on the floor of the cab in a fit of temper. ‘I’ll ask then. You stay here and sulk like a five-year-old.’
Deborah was not especially pretty in Chuck’s opinion: too short and pale with a snub nose and mousy brown hair that she wore scraped back in a tight bun. But when she got angry there was a certain fieriness to her that seemed to animate her features in a not-unattractive way. Chuck thought how irritated Deborah would be if she knew what he was thinking, and smiled.
‘I’m glad you find this funny,’ Deborah snapped, opening the passenger door and jumping down onto the wet grass of the village green. ‘Let’s hope Mr Rasmirez shares your wacky sense of humour.’
Unlike the rest of the crew, Deborah was not a fan of Chuck MacNamee. He’d sat next to her on the flight from LA, fallen instantly asleep and proceeded to snore like a fat fucking walrus for ten straight hours. No one in that cabin had got a wink of sleep. Then, once they’d arrived in England, red-eyed with exhaustion, Chuck had immediately appointed himself head of operations, ordering the camera crew around like a tyrannical ship’s captain, but always saving his most patronizing asides for Deborah. Every other sentence began with: ‘When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, missy …’ Missy? The guy was a total dinosaur. And, to top it all off, he had the navigational skills of a deaf bat after one too many Jack Daniel’s.
Wuthering Heights was the first feature film Deborah had ever worked on. She was wildly excited about meeting Dorian Rasmirez, and hopefully impressing him with her work, her professionalism. But now, thanks to Cap’n Chuck, she and her crew were going to arrive so late they would almost certainly lose the first day’s shooting. Directors rarely took kindly to this sort of mishap.
On the plus side, Deborah had never been to England before. She’d actually never been out of the States, although she had no intention of admitting this to Chuck MacNamasshole. It was a delight to discover that the British countryside really was like something out of a Beatrix Potter book. Loxley village was enchanting, with its stream and its little bridge and a brightly painted maypole with ribbons standing proud in the middle of the green. As she stepped out of the cab, Deborah heard the ancient church clock strike three. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the intoxicating smell of newly mown grass and fresh, floral summer air, and said a silent prayer of thanks that she’d landed this job. It was hard to believe that twenty-four hours ago she’d woken up in smog-ridden Culver City.
‘Afternoon, my love. What can I get for you?’
The old woman behind the counter at the village shop was fat and friendly. Her hair was blue – literally blue, as bright and bold as an M&M, which was a little disconcerting – but her accent was intelligible, to Deborah’s great relief.
‘I’m looking for Loxley Hall. I wondered if you might be able to direct me?’
The old woman’s face lit up. Marjorie Johns had run Loxley Village Stores for the last thirty-five years, and the most exciting thing to happen in all that time was when Des Lynam had popped in one Sunday morning for his paper, back in 1987. But this? This was something else. An American accent in Loxley could only mean one thing: this girl must be one of the film people. From Hollywood! Word that Tish Crewe was hiring out Loxley as a film set had inevitably
got out in the village. For the last three weeks the talk in The Carpenter’s Arms had been of little else.
‘I can do better than that, my darling.’ Bustling out from behind the counter, Marjorie shooed her one other customer out of the shop with a brusque, ‘Not now, Wilf’, turned the sign on the door to ‘CLOSED’ and positively beamed at Deborah. ‘I can take you up there myself.’
Deborah Raynham would probably have been relieved to know that, less than three miles away, Dorian Rasmirez was having an equally trying time locating his location.
‘Fuck!’ Slamming his fist down on the dashboard of his rented Volkswagen Golf, Dorian cursed the British for their obsession with gear sticks. Was the whole country stuck in the fucking Dark Ages? ‘Fuck, fuck and double fucking FUCK.’
The Hertz office at Manchester Airport had had no budget or mid-range automatic cars available when Dorian showed up this morning. His choice had been to pay fifteen hundred a week for a luxury automatic sports car he didn’t need, or two hundred for a ‘reliable’ dark green manual Golf GTI. He’d taken the Golf, smugly congratulating himself for his thriftiness, and proceeded to stall the damn thing approximately every five minutes on the apparently endless drive out to Loxley Hall. No one had thought fit to warn him that rural Derbyshire could only be navigated by means of single-lane roads about the width of your average drinking straw, many of them set at gradients at which one would usually expect to use crampons. Nor had he been prepared for the baffling lack of signposts (one sign per five junctions seemed to be the policy), or the thick accents of the two locals from whom he had misguidedly asked directions.
Leaning back in the driver’s seat, he took a deep breath and willed himself to calm down. OK, so he was hours late, on his way to a location he’d paid well over the odds for, despite having only seen it in photographs. Why? I must have been mad! But at least the scenery was beautiful. This time his car had spluttered to a halt at the top of a rise, right where the narrow lane opened onto a gloriously wide vista. Below Dorian, the Hope Valley spread out like an emerald carpet, criss-crossed with the glinting silver threads of the river Derwent and its myriad tiny tributaries. The landscape was an intoxicating mixture of the bleak and wild, up on the fells themselves, and the rich, pastoral milk-and-honey beauty of the valley floor, with its gold stone villages, lush farmland and pockets of ancient woodland, a tapestry of old England.