Chapter 43
Petey
Bramley had prepared a three-course meal and raided the cellar. He was in his element—suited up like a proper old-fashioned butler, with black coat-tails and white gloves, giving us the full silver service treatment.
Afterwards, we retired to the East Drawing Room for brandy or, in my case, a glass of sherry—as my tastes don’t run to piss-coloured methylated spirits.
Everyone was blotto, including Gran, who could really put it away.
She and Bunny tucked themselves in a corner, bonding over Reggie and Ronnie Kray for some unknown reason—the pair of them were getting along like a forest fire.
Sunny, Ludo, William, and I were sprawled across a couple of sofas.
We had worked out Sunny and Ludo were old friends of William’s godparents—they’d all worked together to uncover a corruption scandal at the heart of government a couple of years earlier.
Apparently, Karma was a demon of the dark web. It’s always the ones you least expect.
“So, how long until you have to pitch to Indira?” Sunny asked.
I grimaced. “Two weeks.”
“You don’t look keen. I thought this was your big dream?”
“It is. But I don’t have an idea big enough yet.”
“What’s your best one, at the moment?” Ludo asked.
“A show called The Great Real Estate Gamble. Picture this. An apartment block. Six identical flats. Six couples. All competing to renovate their apartment as best they can on a tight budget. The catch? The renovation decisions they make are decided on the flip of a coin, or the roll of a dice. They’re making big design decisions based on a constant game of chance.
Which wallpaper? It’s heads or tails. Do they get to buy the tiles they want?
Only if they roll a six. The twist? If they win their game of chance, they can either buy the wallpaper or the tiles they want, or they can choose to sabotage their competitors instead.
At the end, all the flats go on the market, and the one that gets the highest offer wins. ”
Ludo sucked air in through his teeth. Sunny was doing his best to smile supportively, but he seemed to have developed a tic in his right eye.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?”
“Nooooo!” Ludo said, too quickly. “Jolly clever. I’d certainly never have thought of it. Would you, Sunny?”
Sunny glared at his fiancé. “I would watch any TV show you made, Petey Boy. I’m sure it’ll be huge.”
I knew it wasn’t a strong concept. Not yet. But it could be. I needed time to work on it.
The conversation turned to Sunny’s old employer, The Bulletin, and its obsession with the Bisexual Baron Buckford.
“It was bad enough when it was me,” William said. “But when they went after Petey, too, I saw red. Thank God we managed to kill it off.”
Sunny looked at me with concern, his journalist’s instincts obviously kicking in. “What does he mean they went after you?”
I glanced over at Gran to make sure she wasn’t listening. She was still deep in conversation with Bunny.
“Your old mate Gary Ashworth says he’s got people on the record telling stories about me,” I said, quietly. “Visiting Vauxhall.”
Sunny’s and Ludo’s eyes went wide.
“He threatened to print it unless we gave him a better story,” William added, his hand grasping mine. “Luckily, we did.”
“Accidentally, mind you,” I said.
Sunny’s face was grim. “It might have killed it for now. But if Gary Ashworth has that story in his back pocket, he’ll keep threatening to pull it out every time he wants something.”
“That’s blackmail!” William said.
“That’s how it works,” Sunny said. “Do you know he definitely has the story?”
I shook my head. “No idea. It could be a bluff.”
“Seems like a weird thing for him to know,” Ludo said.
“I agree,” Sunny replied. “But either way, there’s only one thing you can do. Get a superinjunction.”
“Does that work?”
Sunny nodded. “I can’t see why not. You would not believe the tales of affairs, children born on the wrong side of the bed, and eye-watering personal proclivities journalists know about but can’t print. You’d be horrified by the names of the beloved national figures involved.”
“Like who?” William said, leaning in for the gossip.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
Sunny frowned. “Superinjunctions.”
“Ah. Yes, I see your point.”
Ludo cleared his throat. “If there’s no public interest defence, you can jolly well suppress most things.”
“You’re not public figures,” Sunny added. “So I imagine you might have grounds for an injunction for privacy reasons.” He took a sip of his brandy and turned to look at me directly. “Know any good lawyers, Petey?”
I groaned. “How are we defining ‘good’?”
I looked at William. It was there in his eyes—the question, the hope, the understanding.
He knew how I felt about asking my family for anything.
I couldn’t call my father. I couldn’t admit I needed his help.
I couldn’t face his disappointment, his disdain.
I’d rather let Gary Ashworth print and be damned.
There was a loud clapping of hands, and everyone turned to look at Bunny Winters.
“Right, who’s for Scrabble?”
Bramley drove Sunny and Ludo to Leicester, where they were staying with Sunny’s mum, and I took Gran upstairs to the yellow bedroom.
She looked frail, but she was up those stairs like a rat up a drainpipe.
Couldn’t wait to get into her nightie and roll around in that four-poster bed, complaining someone had put a pea under her mattress.
I tucked her in and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I wish the girls from the market could see me now,” she said. “Imagine the look on Dolly Nollis’s face, seeing Margaret Topham lying here in fine sheets in a grand country house, like Lady Muck. That’d shut her up. The smug cow.”
“Isn’t she dead?”
“Not dead enough. I hope she’s up there watching.” Gran stuck a middle finger up at the ceiling. It was fun seeing her like this. She almost seemed youthful.
“What do Edward and Angelica think about… this whole situation?” I asked. “You being here. Me being here?”
“Petey Boy, your parents are the biggest snobs I’ve ever met. They think you’re marrying a baron. They’re delighted.”
“But their names keep appearing in the papers alongside mine.”
Gran laughed. “I think having an aristocrat for a future son-in-law makes up for it. Your father’s walking around like he’s being elevated to the House of Lords.”
Of course my father was making this all about him.
“How do you think they’ll take it when they find out it’s not real?” I asked.
Gran was quiet for a moment, studying my face. Then she said, softly: “Isn’t it real? It looks pretty real to me.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. She was right. The engagement was fake, but the feelings were definitely real. What had started as a lie had, somewhere along the way, become the truest thing in my life.
“You done well, ain’t you, Petey Boy?”
My chest burnt, a blush heating my face.
“He’s amazing, isn’t he?”
Gran laughed. “If they’d built them like that when I was young, my hips would have been completely shattered by the time I was your age.”
“Gran!” Now my face was so red I must have looked like a lobster in the pot.
She slapped my hand. “Don’t become a prude now, just because you landed a toff. You think I don’t know what you used to get up to with boys in the bushes down in Weavers Fields, when you should have been upstairs doing your homework?”
I stared at her, horrified.
“Don’t look so surprised, Petey Boy. I might be old now, but I was young in the swinging sixties.”
I tried to shake off what she’d said. We sat in silence, as the horrors of my misspent teen years came flooding back.
“How’s it gonna work, then, Petey Boy?”
It was the question I’d been avoiding. “I don’t know, Gran.”
“Has he got a place in London?”
I shook my head.
“I thought all the toffs had a big gaff in the West End. Like in Upstairs, Downstairs.”
“William hasn’t been to London for three years.”
“Hasn’t been to London? But it’s the centre of the world.”
I shrugged, not sure how to explain it. “He… seems to think it’s cursed. Or he’s cursed, perhaps.”
Gran threw her head back in disbelief. “You’ll have to fix that, Petey Boy. What kind of future can you have together if he’s scared of your home town?”
The dull ache I’d been ignoring for weeks sharpened. Trust Gran to come right out with the practicalities.
“Oh dear, have I put my foot in it?”
I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed it. “No. You’re right.”
My whole life was in London. Gran, my career, my friends. I belonged in London, and William clearly belonged here. What was I meant to do? Give everything up and move to Buckford?
“You’ll work it out,” Gran said. “If you boys want to be together, you’ll find a way.
But I’ll tell you this for free, Petey Boy.
The way that lad looks at you, he’s well and truly gone.
I mean, he called your old man to get permission to bust me out of prison.
He sent your mates to collect me, arranged the train ticket, and he’s given me the nicest room in the house.
It’s bigger than the flat where I spent my whole married life.
He’s mad for you. What’s more, you’re mad for him. That’s got to count for something.”
“How’d you figure?”
“Because you’re already speaking like a proper toff.”
“Oh, piss off.”
“You are!”
“You’re drunk, Margaret.” She was right, though.
I’d found myself needing to speak like a London roadman less and less.
I hadn’t even noticed it at first, but the more comfortable I got at Buckford, the less natural it felt, and it had melted away.
I leant down and kissed Gran on her forehead. “You get some sleep. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Petey Boy.”
I turned off the lamp and slipped out of the room.