Daddy’s Girls. Tasmina Perry

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       10

      Even though it was February, the English countryside could not have looked more lovely. Cate had her foot to the floor of her silver Mini Cooper, Stevie Wonder blaring from the CD player as she sailed through the heart of Dorset, taking her eyes off the road occasionally to admire the view. Past ringing church steeples and old ladies scurrying to worship, past green-black hedgerows and ochre fields made all the more vivid by the sharp winter sun. It was a perfect morning for a drive, she thought, turning a corner and finally glimpsing a line of silver shimmering on the horizon – the sea. If only she wasn’t in such a lousy mood. The drive might be nice, but the last thing she wanted to do on a Sunday morning was come two hundred miles out of London on a mercy mission. But Cate, as always, was concerned for Serena. She couldn’t believe she’d gone swanning off to Michael’s compound in Mustique, despite Cate’s pleas to think it through. Serena had always been an impulsive and bloody-minded child and, as an adult, she was just the same. Yet, despite her gung-ho screw-Tom attitude, Cate knew that, underneath, Serena was hurting – and she hated to see her sisters suffer. The only way to avoid a no-good rebound relationship between Serena and that slime-ball playboy Michael was to track Tom down and convince him to give their relationship another go. Cate wound down the window, a blast of salty coastal air lifting her mood, and squeezed her foot down on the pedal even harder.

      Petersham House hovered into view on a broad bluff, a low-rise stone building with two plump gable ends and a chimney billowing smoke. It belonged to Dorothy Whetton, the aging sister of Tom’s agent, who lived in Fulham and let the house out in the summer. Tom had his own Cotswold house – a sprawling manor he had bought the previous summer – but it was currently minus a heating system and undergoing major architectural surgery. So Dotty Dorothy had come to the rescue and given Tom the keys to this cute bolt-hole, along with the assurance that his residence at Petersham House would remain a secret from the hungry paparazzi.

      ‘Ooh, very Wuthering Heights,’ said Cate, as Tom opened the door in jeans and a frayed T-shirt, his bare feet on the black slate floor.

      ‘What, me or the house?’ replied Tom, chomping on a piece of toast.

      She stepped inside and a warm smokiness embraced her.

      ‘Hope you’ve not had brunch,’ said Tom, licking butter from his fingers. ‘You’re just in time for a fry-up.’

      Cate followed him across the flagstone hall into a small wooden kitchen where a tin kettle was whistling on top of an Aga.

      ‘Brunch? Better make that lunch,’ said Cate, checking her watch. Tom shrugged with a grin and began turning a pan of sizzling sausages. ‘Bit of a surprise this, Cate,’ he said, throwing some bacon and sliced tomatoes into a copper-bottomed pan. ‘Got the shock of my life when you called last night. Thought I’d be persona non grata and all that.’

      She took a proffered cup of tea and wrapped her fingers around the mug. ‘Yes, it’s a long way to come, I know,’ she said hesitantly, unsure how to bring up the subject of Serena. ‘Fabulous place, though. Does anyone know you’re here?’

      Tom shook his head happily. ‘There’s about ten paparazzi stationed outside my place in Gloucestershire, even one in a helicopter circling over the house, but the only gawking you get around here is from the seagulls. Bless Dorothy Whetton. She’s even stocked the kitchen up for about a month, so I don’t need to leave the house too often. After those pictures of me leaping off Roman’s damn boat and that barmaid in my local pub with her mad fantasies about an affair, I think I need to keep a fairly low profile.’

      Cate noticed that his cheeks were flushing slightly. ‘So the barmaid was lying?’ she probed, thinking back to the tabloid kiss-and-tell.

      ‘Yes. It was a lie,’ Tom repeated softly, deliberately. ‘Anyway,’ he continued more happily, ‘I’m definitely enjoying the splendid isolation.’ He pointed to an untidy heap of paper and a titanium laptop sitting on the kitchen counter –

      ‘I’m writing a script about Donald Campbell – you know, the nineteen-fifties land-speed record guy? I’m really excited about it: it’s one of those stories that’s got the lot. Cars, romance, tragedy, handsome men in flying goggles.’

      ‘Sounds great. I’m sold,’ smiled Cate, pleased to see his boyish enthusiasm returning.

      ‘If it gets the green light I wouldn’t mind playing Campbell myself.’

      ‘The handsome man in the flying goggles?’

      They laughed, both glad for a brief respite from the awkwardness between them.

      Tom moved the pan off the heat and turned towards her. ‘Look, Cate, why are you here?’ His expression was sad.

      ‘Well, a peace mission I suppose …’

      ‘Ah, СКАЧАТЬ