Chapter 26
William
As the folly was Wi-Fi-free, the Dower House had become the unofficial headquarters of Save Buckford Enterprises Limited. This morning, though, rather than beavering away at Mum’s laptop, I was lying on her couch with my head in her lap while she ran her fingers through my hair.
“Stop mourning him before he’s even left,” she said—a sobering choice of words from a widow, but I couldn’t get out of my funk.
“In three days, he’s going back to his life in London.”
“Exactly! You have three whole days. Live in the moment you’re in, William. It’s the only thing that’s real.”
“How can I live in the moment when I know how dreadful the moment is going to be in three days’ time?”
Obviously, I had known Petey wouldn’t stay on at Buckford after The Love Manor finished filming.
Unlike me, he had a life outside the estate.
But I’d thought maybe he’d want to stick around.
Hearing him talk about how much he missed his life in London, I realised he would only be back if the show came back. It was a punch to the gut.
Mum rubbed my forehead with her thumb. “Stop frowning or you’ll have a face like a scrotum by the time you’re fifty.” I batted her hand away. “You know, you could always invite him to stay on for a bit…”
I shook my head. “He’s desperate to get back to London.”
“I lived in London when I was courting your father, and guess what? We had thirty blissfully happy years together. All spent right here at Buckford. If you don’t count your father’s year in the ashram—but we’re all entitled to a little midlife crisis.”
My hand reached for my father’s signet ring, hanging from the chain around my neck. Some days I missed him so much it ached in my bones. God only knew how Mother must have felt, losing him and her eldest son on the same day. My chest tightened. “But you stayed.”
“I did, my dear sweet boy. Do you know why Mummy stayed? Because Daddy pulled on his big boy pants one day and asked Mummy if she wanted to stay.”
“I feel like you’re mocking me.”
“A bit.”
I sat up. “I’m revoking your hair-stroking privileges.”
Mum clasped her hands together. “Well, to be honest, it’s a relief. You’ve had one of your testicles hanging out of your boxer shorts for the last fifteen minutes.”
“Oh God, Mum. You could have said.”
“I couldn’t find an appropriate pause in the conversation. You were being so vulnerable with me. I think you’re past the age now where a mother can flick it back in.”
“You think?”
“I figured Bramley would come along, eventually, and dust it. I thought you’d deal with it then.” The laptop pinged with an email notification. The new version of me, Chief Executive Officer William, kicked into gear. I popped my bollock away and slid into the chair at the dining room table.
“Holy shit.”
“What is it, darling?”
“It’s an email from Petey’s father.”
“I didn’t know you’d met the family.”
“I haven’t.” I read the email aloud:
“The North London Jaguar Car Club would be delighted to accept your kind invitation to visit Buckford Hall on the twenty-first of June, proximo, for our annual Father’s Day Run.
We anticipate up to forty cars making the journey and approximately eighty head.
Please send payment details to my assistant, here copied. Much obliged, your servant, et cetera.”
“Guests! How lovely. When did you invite them, darling?”
“I didn’t. Petey did. Edward said no.”
“Well, he’s changed his mind! Isn’t that marvellous?” Mum said. “And it’s on the summer solstice. We should invite them to come up early so they can join the celebrations.”
“Yes, Petey’s parents sound like exactly the kind of people who’d gladly step in to perform the human sacrifices.”
Mum rolled her eyes. “You know what this is, though, don’t you, darling? It’s exactly the excuse Petey needs to come back and visit—and in a few short weeks. The great goddess has provided, exactly as I knew she would.”
I wasn’t so sure. Given Petey’s relationship with his family, this might give him more reason to stay away. Besides, a few weeks? I couldn’t be apart from him for three whole weeks. A fellow can’t go cold turkey: The shock could be fatal.
That night, when the folly door downstairs announced Petey’s arrival, I jumped to my feet.
“I have news,” I said as he stomped his way up the stairs to the study.
“So do I.” He slapped a copy of The Bulletin—the UK’s trashiest tabloid newspaper—down on the coffee table.
I turned my nose up at it like it was a turd in a teapot.
Petey flicked the pages open to a photo of the two of us—walking arm in arm towards the village pub, laughing at something or other, a joyous expression across both our faces.
Adrenaline flooded my body. The headline read: “BISEXUAL BARON TO WED TRASH TV TWINK.” My hands shook.
It had happened again. I took several long, slow, deep breaths, trying not to freak out.
It was actually a lovely photograph of us.
The first ever photograph of us. But it wasn’t ours—it was public property. Cheap entertainment.
“Twink?” I asked, trying to appear outwardly calm.
“Scrub round that bit,” Petey said. “When the tabloids start appropriating terminology from gay culture with any accuracy, it’s a sign of the apocalypse.”
But the apocalypse was already here. I sat down on the edge of my father’s chair and picked up the paper, my breath shortening.
“How’d they get this?”
It was all there, the facts and the fiction—The Love Manor, Petey taking up residence in the folly, “inseparable for weeks,” “very much in love,” “secret engagement.”
“Horatio Blunt?” Petey asked.
I shook my head. “Horatio might be an unrepentant cockweasel, but he’s smart enough to be strategic. This doesn’t get him any closer to his goal.”
“Then someone from the village?”
“They wouldn’t. Besides, they’ve known for, what, a week or so. It doesn’t take that long to call a newspaper.”
“Maybe it took the paper that long to get a picture?”
I turned the page over to see if there was any more. There wasn’t. I went to flick it back.
“Wait!” Petey said, pinning the page open. There was an article about summer fashion trends featuring a photo of a woman in a yellow dress. I vaguely recognised her face.
“I know how they got the story,” Petey said.
I looked at him blankly.
“That’s Kiki Galapagos, one of our banished contestants.”
Something vaguely flashed into mind—another contestant calling Kiki a hotline to the press. Why had it never occurred to me that inviting all these attention-hungry people into my house would lead to more attention on me? It was the last thing I wanted.
“I’ll ask Indira to get the lawyers onto it,” Petey was saying, “but I don’t know if she’s in breach of contract.”
The mention of lawyers added a lead weight to my already heavy stomach.
“Petey, I have to tell you, I got an email from your father today.”
“I know.” He sighed—and I felt relieved he knew about it already. “He called me when I was in the village. In fact, if he hadn’t called to congratulate me on my engagement—which he did not bat an eyelid about, by the way—I wouldn’t have seen the article.”
“He congratulated you?”
“For getting engaged to you. Yes.” Petey threw his arms wide.
“I know. In twenty-seven years, I’ve never once won my father’s approval for anything I’ve done.
Today, he finally uttered the words ‘Well done, son’—and it was for something I haven’t done at all.
Press the buzzer for the irony klaxon, please. Petey Boy has hit an all-time low.”
He was dismissing it, but I could see it hurt.
“Petey, I’m so sorry.” I stood and wrapped my arms around him.
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. My parents are their own kinds of cockweasels.”
He pulled away from the hug sooner than I would have liked. My chest hollowed.
“So, now the whole country thinks we’re engaged,” I said, eyeballing the newspaper like my stare alone could reduce it to ashes. “I’m sure we can explain it to your folks easily enough.”
“Yes, I look forward to seeing their faces slide back into permanent disappointment. This can be yet another way I’ve failed them, depriving them of an aristocratic son-in-law.”
I sighed in sympathy. “I’m going to have to explain it to the whole village too. Preferably this side of the village fair, or that’ll be unbearable.”
“So, is he coming here with his bloody car club?”
“I haven’t replied yet,” I said. “I wanted to ask you what I should do.”
Petey shrugged. “A bag of carrots is a bag of carrots.”
“You don’t mind.”
“Why would I? I won’t be here.”