Fame and Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte

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СКАЧАТЬ Jamie Duggan, wiping a yellow stream of liquid butter off his chin. Jamie was better looking than Rhys, blond and regular featured, but Tish found herself thinking how utterly devoid he was of sex appeal. She tried to picture him as Edgar Linton, making love to Sabrina Leon’s Catherine Earnshaw. It wasn’t easy.

      ‘Please, call me Tish,’ she said. ‘And I’m afraid I can’t take credit for lunch. It’s entirely Mrs Drummond’s hard work.’

      Viorel watched Tish as she chatted to everyone in the room, playing the interested hostess like the well-brought-up lady of the manor that she was. She swapped Scottish reeling stories with Duggan, a dreadful, pompous bore in Vio’s opinion, smiling at all his weak jokes, and tried valiantly to engage Lizzie Bayer in conversation, not easy given that the girl had the attention span of a concussed goldfish. Vio had tried to chat Lizzie up himself in LA after the read-through. Classically pretty in a large-breasted, Scandinavian, FHM sort of way, she’d looked as if she’d be worth having a crack at. But looks could be deceiving. In fact, Lizzie Bayer had about as much spark as a decomposing kipper. All she wanted to talk about was her deathly dull TV show and its ratings.

      ‘Variety named me as one of NBC’s “faces to watch” this year,’ she had told Vio for the third time, preening vacantly in the Veyron’s rearview mirror.

      Really? thought Vio. I’d have named you one of their ‘faces to slap’. Talk about self-obsessed. In the movie, Lizzie was to play Isabella, the trophy wife who Heathcliff relentlessly abuses and humiliates. Viorel was looking forward to it already.

      Looking round the room at his cast-mates, Vio swiftly decided that Rhys was by far the best of the bunch – funny in a cheeky-chappie, naughty-glint-in-his-eye sort of way that gave Vio hope that he might become a mate. He was flirting with Tish outrageously but quite hopelessly, each elaborate compliment flying over the girl’s head like so much wasted shrapnel.

      Aware of Viorel’s eyes boring into her, Tish was starting to feel unpleasantly hot. The effort of not returning his stare was giving her a headache and making it hard to concentrate on what Rhys Evans was saying. It was relief when the phone in the hallway rang and she was summoned away to take the call.

      Two minutes later she returned to the table looking white.

      ‘Is everything all right?’ asked Dorian.

      ‘It’s my son,’ said Tish, her voice a monotone. ‘He’s had an accident at school. They’ve called the local GP. Apparently, he’s concussed.’

      ‘Oh my God. What happened?’

      ‘He fell out of a tree. He and another boy were playing Alvin and the Chipmunks or something … the doctor says he’s fine, but he’s been asking for me. I have to get down there right away.’

      ‘Of course,’ said Dorian. ‘Do you want me to drive you?’

      Tish looked at him blankly for a moment, lost in her own anxiety. She was sure she’d read somewhere that people often seemed fine after a head injury but then haemorrhaged and died hours later.

      ‘Tish?’

      ‘Hmm? Oh, no, thank you. I’m fine to drive.’

      ‘Are you sure?’ Dorian looked concerned.

      ‘Positive. Excuse me,’ she said to the room at large, running out at a jog.

      Tish was already in the car and starting the engine by the time Viorel caught up with her. He opened the driver’s door. ‘Scooch over.’

      ‘What?’ Tish looked flustered.

      ‘I’m driving.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘It wasn’t a question,’ said Vio firmly, nudging her over to the passenger side. ‘I’m driving. You need to focus on your son.’

      By the time they got to St Agnes’s primary school, Abel had got over his teary, ‘I want my mum’ stage and was thoroughly enjoying being the centre of attention.

      ‘I nearly died,’ he told Tish cheerfully, pointing proudly to the cold compress strapped to his forehead with Dennis the Menace bandages. ‘If I’d died, Michael would have had to go to prison until he was a hundred years old.’

      ‘No I wouldn’t,’ said Michael, without glancing up from his colouring-in. ‘It was a accident, wasn’t it, Miss Bayham? No one goes to prison for a accident.’

      Miss Bayham assured Tish that it had indeed been an accident, and that Dr Rogers had said there was no need to get Abel’s head X-rayed.

      ‘I’ll drive you to A and E, just in case,’ said Vio. He couldn’t take his eyes off Abel. The kid looks exactly like me.

      ‘Who’s he?’ asked Abel, noticing the dark-haired man staring at him as Tish carried him across the playground. ‘Is he a taxi driver?’

      Tish looked embarrassed but Viorel laughed. Dorian was right: the kid was seriously cute.

      ‘I’m Viorel,’ he said, offering Abel his hand to shake. ‘I’m a friend of your mother’s.’

      ‘Viorel who? I’ve never seen you before.’

      Vio grinned. ‘Viorel Hudson. Why, how many Viorels do you know?’

      ‘Two,’ said Abel, ‘at my old school.’

      Vio’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Really? Where was your old school?’

      ‘Romania,’ said Abel.

      Vio felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. No wonder he looks so like me. And nothing like his mother. I wonder if he’s adopted?

      ‘My long name is Abel Henry Gunning Crewe,’ said Abel, abruptly changing the subject. ‘What’s your favourite dinosaur?’

      ‘Therizinosaurus,’ said Vio, not missing a beat. ‘What’s yours?’

      Abel looked at Tish, wide-eyed with admiration. Most grown-ups were embarrassingly ignorant on the giant reptiles of the Mesozoic Era. Mummy’s new friend was cool.

      ‘Mine’s Ceratosaurus, but in a tie with Fukuisaurus. My mum likes T-Rex, but that’s just because it’s the only one she knows.’ He rolled his eyes.

      Vio nodded in sympathy. ‘That’s girls for you.’

      ‘Tell me about it.’

      In the car on the way to the hospital, Tish told Vio, ‘You’re good with children.’

      He smiled. ‘You sound surprised.’

      She shrugged. ‘I suppose I am, a little.’

      ‘Why? Because I’m an actor?’

      ‘I don’t know. Maybe, yes.’

      Lifting his hand off the gear stick, Vio rested it casually on Tish’s leg. ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover, Miss Crewe. I’m actually good with all sorts of things.’ Slowly, infinitesimally slowly, he began stroking СКАЧАТЬ