“Maybe you shouldn’t be a boss anymore,” I say as we finally draw apart, my head buzzing a little. “I’m not sure it’s making you happy.”
“Maybe you’re right.” He nods, his eyes absent—then suddenly focuses on me. “Whereas you, Katie, should be a boss. You will be, one day. I know it. You’ll be a big boss.”
“What?” I stare at him in disbelief.
“Oh yes.” He nods matter-of-factly. “You’ve got what it takes. Stuff I haven’t got. You’ve got a way with people. I watched you just now, managing your cleaner. You know what you want and you make it happen and nothing gets broken. There’s a skill in that.”
I gaze back at Alex, feeling a bit overcome. No one’s ever said anything like that to me before, and my insecure, defensive hackles can’t help rising: Is he just being kind? But he doesn’t look like he’s trying to do me a favor. There’s not one patronizing note in his voice—he sounds like he’s saying it as he sees it.
“Come on.” He opens the door. “I can’t put off the evil moment anymore. Let’s see if Demeter’s back.”
—
I’m half-hoping Demeter will be at the farmhouse already, will greet us with her old Demeter panache and stride around on her long legs with some story about how she’s fixed everything and spoken to Adrian and it’s all marvelous now. But there’s no sign of her.
The afternoon’s golden glow has ebbed away, and Dad’s already got a campfire going at the center of the yurt village. On Tuesday nights we always have a campfire, sausages, toasted marshmallows, and a singsong. Everyone loves a fire and a singsong after a few beers—even though the actual songs we sing depend on who the glampers are. (One time we had a guy staying who’d been a backing singer for Sting. That was amazing. But last week we had the I-know-all-of-Queen’s-repertoire-listen-to-me! dad. That was bad.)
Biddy is walking along the path, lighting lanterns as she goes, and she looks up with a smile as I approach.
“Hi,” I say breathlessly. “Have you seen Demeter?”
“Demeter? No, love. I thought she’d gone to London.”
“She did. But I thought she might be back….” I sigh anxiously, then glance at Alex. He’s standing on the edge of the yurt village, already scowling miserably at his phone. He must be picking up his emails.
“Look, there’s nothing you can do for now,” I say, tapping his shoulder. “Why not come and sit by the campfire and…you know. Relax?”
The campfire usually brings out the inner child in people, and I’m hoping it might appeal to the quirky, playful side of Alex that I love. As we sit down on the grass, the flames cast an orange flickering light on his face. The familiar crackle-and-spit sound of the fire instantly calms my nerves, and the smell is like every bonfire night I’ve ever known. I turn to see if he’s enjoying it too—but his face is still tense and preoccupied. Bearing in mind the situation, I can’t really blame him.
On the plus side, everyone else seems to be having fun. All the glampers are toasting marshmallows, leaning forward with their toasting irons. Occasionally Giles throws a firelighter onto the fire to get an extra-large flame, and I lean politely over to him.
“Actually…that’s a bit dangerous for the children?”
“Only a bit of fun,” he says, but stops and swigs his beer and I breathe out. The last thing we need is some monster flame singeing someone’s eyebrows. I mean, we do have enormous buckets of water placed at strategic points, but even so.
On the other side of the fire there seems to be a bit of jostling and dispute going on.
“Stop it!” exclaims Susie suddenly, and I realize a full-scale row is breaking out. “No one else can get a look in!” she’s saying heatedly to Cleo. “Your children have pinched all the best places, all the toasting irons….”
“For heaven’s sake,” says Cleo in her drawling way. “It’s a campfire. Relax.”
“I’ll relax when my children can toast marshmallows as well as yours—”
“Here we go! Here we go now!” Dad’s cheerful voice penetrates the atmosphere, and we all look up to see him skipping into view with a jingle-jingle sound. He’s wearing white trousers, a waistcoat, jingle bells attached to his legs, and sticks in his hands. Accordion music is playing from a CD player plonked on the grass. “La-la-la…” He starts singing some random line or other. “La-la-la…And-a-one-and-a-two…”
“Farmer Mick!” shriek the children as though he’s a celebrity. “Farmer Mick!”
I clap a hand over my mouth, trying not to laugh. Dad’s been talking about Morris dancing, but I didn’t think he’d actually do it. I mean, what the hell does he know about Morris dancing?
He’s still humming an indistinct tune and skipping about, and every so often he bangs his sticks. You couldn’t call it dancing. More…capering. The grown-ups are watching as if they’re not sure if it’s a joke or not, but the children are all whooping and cheering.
“Who’s going to be my assistant?” Dad whips a bell-covered stick from his waistcoat and proffers it at the children. “Who wants to join the dance?”
“Me!” they all shout, grabbing for the bell stick. “Meeeeee!”
I can see Poppy standing up eagerly. She’s the little girl who’s here with her single dad, and she seems really sweet. But Cleo at once pushes Harley forward.
“Harley, you dance, darling. Harley does ballet and jazz dance and Stagecoach every Saturday—”
“For God’s sake, give it a rest!” Susie explodes. “Poppy, why don’t you dance, sweetheart?”
“Give what a rest?” demands Cleo, sounding offended. “I’m simply pointing out that my child is a trained dancer….”
I catch Dad’s eye and he gets my drift at once.
“Everybody dance!” he bellows. “All the kiddies up! And-a-one-and-a-two-and-a—”
“Katie.” A voice in my ear makes me turn, and I see Demeter’s son, Hal, at my side.
“Hi, Hal!” I greet him. “Have you toasted a marshmallow yet?” Then I look more closely at him. He’s pale and blinking hard. “Hal,” I say urgently. “What’s happened? What’s up?”
“It’s Coco.” He looks a bit desperate. “She’s…she’s drunk.”
—
Thankfully she made it out of the yurt in time. I find her retching into a nearby patch of grass and put a comforting arm around her whilst simultaneously averting my eyes and thinking, Urgh. Gross. Hurry up.
When she seems a bit better, I lead her over to the outdoor shower. I’m not going to drench her—even though it’s tempting—but instead I dampen a sponge and clean her up a bit, then get her back to the yurt.
I mean, it could be worse. She could be comatose. As it is, she’s able to walk and talk, and there’s already a bit of color returning to her cheeks. She’ll live.
“Sorry,” she keeps saying in a mumbly voice. “I’m so sorry.”
As we get into the yurt, I flinch at the sight. So this is what happens when two teenagers are left to their own devices for a day. There are plates and crumbs everywhere—they must have been raiding Biddy’s larder—plus sweet wrappers, phones, an iPad, magazines, makeup…and, sitting in the middle of it all, a half-empty bottle of vodka. Nice.
I put Coco into bed, prop her up against a mound of pillows, then sit on the bed. I gesture at the vodka bottle and sigh. “Why?”
“Dunno,” says Coco, with a defensive, sulky shrug. “I was bored.”
Bored. I look at the magazines and the iPad. I think about the campfire and the marshmallows and Dad capering like a mad thing, just to entertain everyone. I think about Demeter, working her socks off to pay for Jack Wills hoodies.
I should have taken bloody Coco to muck out the stable, that’s what I should have done.
“Where did you get it?”
“Brought it. Are you going to tell Mum?” Coco’s voice quickens with worry.
“I don’t know.” I give her a stern look. “You know, your mum really loves you. She works super-hard to pay for all your cool stuff. And you’re not that nice to her.”