No Ex Before Marriage, page 13
‘In a boat?’ Kat says with a squeak. We’ve definitely got her attention now.
‘Yes, you did,’ I reply quickly, my logic being that, if we had something to hide, we’d be trying to hide it right now, instead of telling the truth.
‘Yes, we’re all keen rowers in our family,’ Zac says, taking the reins. ‘We like to have races. Poppy was always the cox.’
‘I’ve heard that said before,’ Kat jokes under her breath.
‘Really?’ Farrell replies.
‘Yep,’ Zac says, as convincingly as he can. ‘It’s a Hunt family tradition.’
Farrell opens his mouth to speak but we’re interrupted by the sound of Kat sniggering. We all look at her.
‘Is Lilac taking your name?’ she asks Zac.
‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘Why?’
‘Lilac Hunt?’ she says to him. ‘It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?’
‘Oi, it’s a beautiful name,’ I insist. ‘Anyway, we were talking about rowing.’
I can’t believe I’m dragging the conversation back to my lie, but the subject was taking a real turn.
‘Yeah,’ Farrell replies, also getting the conversation back on track. ‘I love rowing. I’m pretty good at it. Maybe we could race?’
Oh, God, now I wish we could go back to Kat making fun of people’s names.
‘Maybe,’ Zac replies.
Let’s hope that’s the last of that. Well, I doubt they’ll be competing on rowing machines and, if they do, I don’t fancy Zac’s chances against a stunt man.
‘So, what do you all do here for fun during the day?’ Kat asks curiously.
‘Games,’ Farrell replies.
‘Forced fun,’ Zac says at the same time.
Farrell shoots him a look.
‘I’m just not really into the games,’ Zac tells us. ‘Lilac’s family always play this game called Find and Sneak – it’s one of those games you only played growing up if you lived in mansions. We couldn’t have played it in our house.’
Zac purses his lips. I think he was talking about our house, as in the tired three-bed semi we lived in when we got married, but Farrell is too busy hoovering down a gigantic plate of scrambled eggs to notice.
‘I think Sonny wants to have a sort of Highland games event,’ Farrell says. ‘That will be more your style, Zac. Maybe we could fit our boat race in after?’
‘Maybe,’ Zac says once again. I can tell he wants absolutely no part of it.
‘Good morning, campers,’ Sonny announces brightly. ‘How’s everyone doing today?’
Sonny is the star of the show, no matter where he goes or what he does. The second he walks into a room, it’s all eyes on him, both because people are interested in him, but also because he commands it.
‘Poppy, can I borrow you, darling?’ he says, which takes me aback, because no one ever believes the most important person in the room wants to talk to them, do they?
‘Sure,’ I reply, semi-reluctantly abandoning the last of my breakfast. I say semi because I am actually intrigued by what Sonny could want to talk to me about, and I’ve definitely eaten way more than I should have. If I were a cox today, I’d sink the boat.
He ushers me across to the other side of the room, next to the pastries – would it be weird to grab one? Of course it would. I won’t do that.
‘Between you and me,’ he says, lowering his voice, hardly moving his lips as he speaks, lest anyone be lipreading him right now. ‘Something strange is going on in this castle.’
‘Strange?’ I reply. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Look, I’m not saying it’s ghosts,’ he starts.
Oh, God, fuck it, I need that pastry now.
‘I’m not ruling anything out,’ he continues. ‘But something is going on. Strange things keep happening and they’re getting worse. Last night, for example, after everyone went to bed, someone, or something, came into our bedroom.’
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask him if it was the Loch Ness Monster – or the Loch Tarness Monster, at least.
‘How do you know?’ I ask curiously.
‘They took the wedding rings,’ he replies. ‘Lilac’s ring, which was my late mum’s ring, worth a bloody fortune, and then the ring Zac chose for himself – also worth a fortune – both gone. Lilac will go mad when she realises, so I need to get them back ASAP.’
Oh, shit. This is actually serious.
‘Who do you think it was?’ I ask him.
‘I was hoping the family MI6 agent might help me work that out,’ he says with a hopeful smile, crossing his fingers and waving them in front of me.
Double shit.
‘Erm, yeah,’ I say. ‘Of course. Well, I mean, what are you after?’
Wow, I sound so professional.
‘The only people with access to the family wing are, obviously, the family – me, Cherry, Lilac and Zac – obviously none of us would have taken them because, you know, they’re already ours. That just leaves two members of staff,’ he explains. ‘Part of the deal is that we have absolute privacy. Staff not only signed nondisclosure agreements, but agreed to stay on the island for the whole wedding, so if one of them has taken the rings, they won’t have had chance to get away with it. I was hoping you’d interrogate them with me. I have some experience, from my movies, but waterboarding them feels a bit heavy-handed at this stage.’
Sonny laughs wildly.
At this stage, yeah, probably. I keep my sarcasm to myself.
‘Right.’
‘I thought, you know, you have more real experience than me,’ he says. ‘You could talk to them.’
‘Yeah, okay, sure,’ I reply, although I’m deeply, deeply uncomfortable with this.
It’s hard to say who is the least qualified for this job: me or Sonny. I think I’m going to back myself, in this instance, as being the right person for the job. At least I don’t know how to waterboard anyone.
This should be interesting.
21
There are two people who do the housekeeping in the family wing of the castle: Sophie and Sophia. Sophie is a fifty-something English woman. Sophia is a twenty-something Italian. Sonny refers to them as the Sophs, and never seems to quite get a handle on which one is which.
We’re currently standing in one of the old stone corridors (but aren’t they all) where Sophia is pushing a trolley stacked with toiletries. I swear, these are nicer than the ones we have in our bathroom.
‘I was just looking for you, babe,’ Sonny tells her.
‘Do you want my hands?’ she replies.
She’s obviously just muddling up a fairly common phrase, but Sonny’s eyes light up.
‘Mate, do I,’ he says. He turns to me, to give me a geezer nudge, but he can tell from the look on my face that I’m not having any of it.
I’m not here to help him Me Too a maid, I’m here to help him find the missing wedding jewellery – I’m barely here to do that, I’m just going along with Kat’s stupid lie.
Sophia doesn’t get his joke, and for that I’m grateful.
‘Some jewellery has gone missing from the family room,’ he finally says.
It sounds like the family room is some sort of shared space between Sonny and Cherry’s room and Zac and Lilac’s.
‘Oh, no,’ Sophia says. ‘I know nothing about that. I clean bathrooms and kitchens; I don’t clean rooms.’
‘What do you reckon?’ Sonny asks me. ‘Is she telling the truth?’
Sophia looks at me, anxiously waiting to see if I clear her name.
Honestly, how the hell should I know? Neither Daniel Craig as James Bond nor as Benoit Blanc in Knives Out could figure this one out from such limited information, surely?
Honestly, I just feel so deeply uncomfortable with this, I just want it to end.
‘She doesn’t seem like she’s lying to me,’ I reply. ‘Her micro-expressions aren’t indicative of lying.’
A little something I picked up from Lie to Me. Isn’t it amazing, how much you can learn from just watching TV?
‘Okay, you can go, for now,’ Sonny tells her. ‘But I’m watching you.’
Sophia frowns.
‘Where’s the other one?’ he asks her. I cringe.
‘Sophie?’ she replies. ‘She’s in your bed.’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Sonny says under his breath. ‘Come on, you.’
He nods for me to follow him. This is like the world’s worst buddy cop movie – incidentally, something Sonny would probably star in.
When we arrive in Sonny’s bedroom, he suddenly remembers that Sophie is the one closer to his age. He pulls a face, like he regrets his joke about wanting her in his bed.
‘Oi,’ he calls out. ‘We need a word with you.’
‘What on earth is the matter, Mr Strong?’ she replies, putting down the pillowcase she’s currently stuffing, hurrying around the bed to greet us.
Sophie seems both dutiful and polite – hardly a jewel thief.
‘Someone has stolen some jewellery from the family room, and we think it’s you,’ he says plainly.
My eyebrows shoot up to the turrets.
‘Well, I’ve never been so offended in my life,’ she says. ‘In all my years in the job, not once have I stolen, not once have I even been accused.’
‘Well, it wasn’t the other one,’ Sonny tells her. ‘She checked out. So you’re looking pretty guilty right now. Would you agree to letting us search you and your room?’
‘Oh, Mr Strong, absolutely not,’ she shrieks.
Sonny turns to me.
‘That’s her banged to rights,’ he says quietly, although she can still hear. ‘Only guilty people have something to hide. Hmm, that would make a great movie title.’
Oh, yeah, Sonny, get right on that, when you’re finally done flogging the Not Dead Yet horse.
‘She probably just doesn’t want anybody going through her things,’ I tell him. ‘And she obviously doesn’t want us patting her down – no one would want that.’
Sonny narrows his eyes.
I really can’t see it, that either of these women would have crept into Sonny’s room during the night and stolen two wedding rings – especially given the fact that no one can leave until after the wedding, when obviously it would be noticed that they were missing. I know, I’m not actually a secret agent, but that just seems like common sense to me. Sophia and Sophie are clearly just trying to do their jobs here. It’s the right thing to do, to use my stupid lie, to nip this in the bud.
‘Look, okay, I shouldn’t be showing you this, but there’s a super-secret MI6 technique for instantly telling if someone is lying or not. But we’re not supposed to do it off the job, ethically, but how about I do it now, so that Sophie can get back to work?’ I suggest.
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Sonny says with a sigh of relief.
‘Sophie, do you mind?’ I ask.
‘Erm, okay,’ she replies. I don’t think she has a clue what I’m on about. Neither do I, to be fair.
I take Sophie’s hand in mine and examine it. Next, I hold it, as though I’m shaking her hand, but I extend my index finger to her wrist and press it lightly.
‘Do you know anything about the missing jewellery?’ I ask her slowly.
‘No,’ she replies in a similar tone. I’m not sure she’s buying it, but Sonny is lapping it up.
‘Yep, telling the truth,’ I confirm to Sonny. ‘Come on, let’s leave her to it.’
‘Sorry about that, Sophia,’ he says, getting her name wrong. ‘It’s just, y’know, it’s the rings for the wedding. They’re a big deal.’
Sophie grits her teeth.
‘That’s okay, Mr Strong,’ she says, not exactly selling the sentiment, but who can blame her. ‘Perhaps look a little closer to home.’
Sonny and I make our way back out to the hallway.
‘Well, now I feel awful,’ Sonny says. ‘But things just seem to be going wrong for this wedding, left, right and centre. Liles is my little girl, y’know? I just want to make it perfect, and now the rings are missing. And it was her who proposed to Zac, so she didn’t even get a ring in the first place.’
‘That’s okay, I understand,’ I tell him. Well, I kind of do. I get wanting to do the best for your family. Not so much blindly accusing the people who clean up after you, but still.
I don’t know why I’m surprised that Lilac was the one who proposed to Zac, it is 2022 after all. But it definitely makes me think about when he proposed to me.
‘Could you do me one more favour, please?’ Sonny asks.
‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘Tonight, when everyone goes to bed, just walk the halls, keep an eye out, use your skills to see if anyone is lurking around after dark, doing anything weird,’ he says.
‘Erm…’
‘Please,’ he says.
‘Yeah, okay, I’ll have a look around, see what I can see,’ I reply.
‘You’re a diamond,’ he replies. ‘I’m so lucky to be merging my lot with such a beautiful family.’
I smile.
‘Right, let’s go get on with the fun stuff,’ Sonny says. ‘But first, I need some breakfast.’
Yay, this must be the forced fun Zac was talking about. I only need to stick it out a little longer, until Zac and I can sneak off to the mainland to get the papers signed and sent.
Until then, I just have to play along, whatever the games may be.
22
31 October 2014
More often than once in a blue moon, but still rare enough to be special, Halloween falling on a Friday or a Saturday night is one hell of a magical thing.
When you’re little, Halloween is awesome, obviously, but it’s always a pretty similar affair. You get dressed up, go trick or treating, eat sweets, play games, have a spooky dinner, eat more sweets. I’ve always loved Halloween. I used to try to stay up late on Halloween when I was a kid. It all started when my mum told me that, supposedly, if you ate an apple, brushed your hair and looked in the mirror on Halloween night, you would see the face of the man you were going to marry. I never quite managed it though, either because I would be too scared to try, or I would fall asleep.
But now that I’m grown up – which is an ironic thing to say given what’s coming next – Halloween falling on a Friday or a Saturday means getting dressed up, going out partying and staying out all night.
Tonight is one of those nights. One of those wonderful Friday night Halloweens that feel so rare. As such, I’ve gone all out with my costume. Zac, the nerdy love of my life, suggested we pair up and have costumes that complement one another, and with his favourite flick of the year being Guardians of the Galaxy, that’s what I agreed to do. So here I am, at a house party, dressed as a not exactly movie-quality version of Gamora, in a red wig with so much green face paint on I can only quantify it in time, and I’m wearing pushing an hour’s worth.
Sally looks phenomenal as Maleficent, even if it is a dodgy Amazon third-party seller version, and Rachael, who somehow thought she could style it out as a sexy ghost with a sheet around her, has realised it isn’t exactly working so we’ve just had to squash into the downstairs loo with her, to help her restyle it as a toga.
‘Is that… is that Lindsey?’ Sally asks in disbelief.
I glance through a crowd of people and just about make her out.
‘What on earth is she supposed to be?’ Rachael asks.
‘Says you,’ I tease.
That’s a good question, though. She’s, rather bravely – considering it’s October – wearing a swimming costume and carrying a bucket.
‘Hi, gang,’ she says brightly. ‘Sorry I’m late.’
‘What are you?’ Sally asks her, her face contorted with puzzlement from trying to figure it out and failing.
Lindsey raises the bucket above her head and pours it all over herself. What must be a hundred (presumably fake) ice cubes cascade over her and go everywhere, briefly grabbing the attention of all the partygoers around us before they quickly get back to whatever they were doing.
We just keep staring at her.
‘I’m the ice bucket challenge,’ she tells us, as though we were idiots.
‘Wait, do you have to pick all those up now?’ Sally asks.
‘Yeah, that’s why I was late,’ she explains. ‘I gave my flatmate a demo.’
‘I am not pissed enough for this,’ Sally says with a sigh.
‘I’ll grab us some more drinks,’ I laugh. ‘Ciders all round?’
As I push my way through the overcrowded house (you’ve got to feel sorry for whosever house this is because it’s going to be such a mess) something catches my eye. Is that… is that? No!
‘Zac?’ I blurt.
‘I’m not Zac,’ he says. ‘I’m, well, I’m Groot, aren’t I?’
‘I can see that,’ I reply. ‘But I thought we were going to be Gamora and Star-Lord – he’s a cool guy, in his jacket, with his Walkman. And here you are, Groot, the giant tree fella.’
‘I’m not really a cool guy though, am I?’ he says with a laugh. ‘Let’s not pretend otherwise.’
I roll my eyes. I should have insisted he get ready with me, but he said he was running late. I think I understand why now.
‘At least you’ve smashed it,’ I admit. ‘Lindsey is here as the ice bucket challenge, you need to see it to believe it, I’m just going to grab some—’
‘Can I talk to you?’ he asks, not really listening, suddenly so serious.
‘Erm, okay,’ I say nervously.
‘Let’s find somewhere upstairs,’ he suggests as he leads me up the staircase.
My heart is pounding, and not only because I nearly fall back down the stairs trying to step over the Smurf and the vampire kissing on the top step.
‘Empty,’ Zac says as he opens one of the doors. ‘Here will do.’
I follow Zac in to the empty bedroom. He pushes me back against a wardrobe and starts kissing me. I’m all for it, for about five seconds, until I stop him.
‘I’m not shagging you in a random room at a house party,’ I tell him. ‘What if someone walks in?’
