Chapter Six
Chapter
Six
Back in my flat, I lie on the sofa and idly wonder whether it would be too dramatic to kill myself.
It’d save Leo’s creepy twins a job; they gave me a look back at the castle that conveyed their malicious thoughts in no uncertain terms. Lestat obviously thinks so, because he’s just noisily shoved his food bowl all the way over to me from the kitchen with his flat face and is now clanking it against the floor with barely suppressed rage.
He’s not at all bothered when I roll from the sofa and scuttle to the kitchen on all fours; I’m going in the right direction so he’s content.
I briefly consider shoving my face into his kibble and chowing down just to piss him off, but when I drop my head he pauses and eyeballs me, and the message there is crystal clear: Come any closer and you won’t need to worry about killing yourself, because I’ll sink my teeth into your soft throat and puncture you like a tire, Bittersweet.
I growl at him as I use the fridge door to pull myself up to standing.
If he’s refusing to share his kibble and I’m too pissed off to cook, there’s only one thing for it.
I don’t even bother putting any shoes on.
I just shuffle out of my flat, haul my sorry ass down the stairs, and amble through my mum’s ever-open door.
It’s unexpectedly noisy in there this evening. My mother and Gran are having a heated discussion, which in itself is unusual, and they both shut up and look shifty when I go in. I eye them as I pull out a seat at the dining table and collapse into it.
“What’s going on here, then?” I ask. I direct my question at my mother because she is marginally the saner of the two. She doesn’t answer, just glowers at me. Okay, we’ll do this the hard way.
“Gran?” I say. She picks up her champagne glass and eyes me moodily over the rim.
“This email came today,” Mum says, slapping a printout down on the table in front of me. “From the Shropshire Express.”
The beginnings of unease stir in my gut. Fletch works for the Shropshire Express.
“They want to send a reporter to shadow us for a couple of days for an in-depth feature.”
“They do?” I skim-read the email and it does say pretty much exactly that. They produce a glossy quarterly pullout on local businesses, and as the next one is due out in autumn they’re thinking of making a splash with Halloween features and ghost-related pieces. “And you don’t want to do it?”
“Our entire business is based on one-to-one consultations. Privacy is the cornerstone. You know that, Melody.”
I’m confused. “So why the argument?”
Mum’s eyes skitter away, and then she opens one of the pine wall cupboards and extracts the waffle iron.
“Hungry?” she asks, already reaching for her mixing bowl.
My mother makes waffles to die for. She turns to me with the maple syrup in her hands, and she may as well have been swinging a fob watch for how mesmerized I am by it.
“Stop distracting her with sugar, Silvana.” Gran clicks her fingers at me. “Melody, focus.”
I tear my eyes from the syrup. “I don’t see what the big deal is. If you don’t want to do it, just say no.”
“Which will leave them free to make up as much rubbish and hocus-pocus as they like and we’ll have no recourse because they offered us the chance to be fairly represented.
Or they’ll offer Leo Dark the opportunity instead and all of the precious publicity that could have come our way, your way, will go to him instead.
” Because my gran drinks champagne for breakfast and still sleeps with my grandpa’s randy ghost even though he’s been dead for twenty years, it’s easy to forget that she’s also been a businesswoman for over fifty years.
She can see this is something that needs to be done, but I understand my mother’s reticence too.
Their consultations are as confidential as a doctor’s visit; how many patients would be comfortable with a reporter sitting in while they have their hemorrhoids examined?
They’re both looking at me as if they expect me to side with them. Mum pours batter into the waffle iron on the Aga and she may as well have said, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
Gran narrows her eyes, then pulls a carton of fresh ruby-red strawberries from the fridge and places them triumphantly on the table in front of me. She even goes so far as to flip the lid up and fan the sweet smell toward me with her hand.
This could get really interesting if I just sit here long enough.
Who knows what they might offer me next?
My empty stomach grumbles in appreciation at the exact moment my brain short-circuits.
Or else that’s what must have happened, because that’s the only feasible explanation for the words that leave my mouth next.
“We could offer to let them shadow me instead.”
Am I drunk? Has Gran slipped me a roofied strawberry? Bad, bad words, get back inside my head this minute! They don’t though. They hang around in the air laughing at me while my mother and Gran consider the new possibility.
“Well, I’d certainly rather Melody get the publicity than Leo Dark,” my mother says, opening the waffle iron with an expert hand. Within seconds she’s slid the waffles onto a delicate china plate and served them to me with a shake of cinnamon and powdered sugar.
Gran nods. “They’d find it harder to do a hatchet job on us if they meet Melody.” She smiles sweetly at me. “To know you is to love you, darling.” She turns to my mother. “Email them, Silvana. Tell them they can have access to our Bittersweet baby.”
“On the condition that under no circumstances do they send Fletcher Gunn,” my mother mutters darkly.
I’m not convinced that my gran is being 100 percent genuine, in fact I think she just played me like a violin, but she passes me the can of whipped cream from the fridge when she tops off her champagne glass so I don’t call her on it.
I build a cream version of the Alps on top of my waffles instead, and it’s almost distraction enough to keep my mind off the fact that I’ve potentially just thrown myself into the path of Fletcher Gunn, and he’s far more dangerous for my health than any sugar overload.
At half past nine the following morning, I find myself back outside the castle with Marina and Artie, jostling with Leo and the creepy twins to be the one who knocks on the door.
We must look like the cast of some oddball movie.
Leo is over six feet to my five three and he shoulders me to the side at the last minute as the door swings open.
Lois greets us dressed today in billowy white harem pants and a flamboyant rainbow silk turban fixed in place by a huge costume diamond.
Massive dark glasses cover a good two-thirds of her face, as if she’s had a night on the town and cannot bear to look into the sunlight.
“People, my people,” she croaks. “Come in.”
I dodge around Leo and slide in in front of him. “Are you all right, Lois?”
“Difficult night,” she murmurs, touching her turban with her fingertips. Barty appears, rolling a bulging suitcase along the hall flagstones behind him.
“Are you going somewhere?” I ask, surprised.
“Only to the B and B in the village, darlin’,” Lois says, and when I catch Barty’s eye he frowns and shakes his head to stop me delving deeper.
“I’m detecting a different vibe in here from yesterday.” Leo strokes the air with his palms like a stage medium. Everyone else probably thinks he’s referring to ghostly vibes, but I know he means Lois and Barty, because so far today the ghosts are conspicuous by their absence.
“The damn ghosts went crazy on us last night,” Lois mewls suddenly, and she flops violently to the side. Marina lunges forward and catches her quickly.
“Easy there, Lady L,” she says, guiding her down into the nearest chair.
I drop to my haunches and lay a hand on Lois’s knee. “What happened?”
She takes her sunglasses off, and without her makeup she looks her age and then some. Her face is pinched, and even her suntan doesn’t stop her looking tired and drawn.
“They wouldn’t give us a minute’s peace,” she says, knotting her fingers in her lap.
“Every room we went in, they followed and threw things around. Broken glasses. Tipped-over chairs. Spilled drinks. Smashed photos. Poor Barty, one of them even took his dinner plate and overturned it on his head, right there at the table while we were eating dinner.”
I look across at Barty, who nods ruefully. “No way that spaghetti stain’s ever comin’ out.”
“Every time I poured myself a gin, they knocked it right over,” Lois says, shaking her head in distress.
It’s clear that the gin was the final straw.
“They obviously want us to leave, so that’s what we’re going to do.
” There’s drama to her delivery; I think it’s just the kind of woman she is.
Yesterday she was the hostess with the mostest, today she is the damsel in distress.
“You really don’t need to do that,” Leo says, frowning. “Or at least not until my camera crew arrives this afternoon.”
Trust him to have his TV show at the forefront of his mind. “I can’t possibly be filmed today,” Lois wails. “I haven’t slept in two days. My bags have bags.”
Leo kneels beside Lois’s chair as if she’s his grandmother in a care home. “There, there,” he says, holding her other hand.
Who says that, really? No one, that’s who. It’s a good thing he didn’t go into medicine; his bedside manner would need some serious work.
“You look radiant, Lois,” he says, lying. “The camera will love you and it’ll make gripping footage if you can recount to them what you’ve just told us. You’ll have everyone hooked and wanting to come and see this place for themselves.”
Oh, he’s good. Flattery and the suggestion of extra press coverage. I don’t have any such tools to tempt her with…or do I? I don’t really want to go down the flattery line, but the press…just maybe.
“I have a bit of news that might cheer you up too,” I say.