house.’
‘This young man does not sound like a suitable addition to our little community. Dunsop has always been such a quiet, respectable place.’
The locals decided to protest, led by a neighbour, Mrs Julia Farquhar—a tall, tweedy northern woman with fierce bosoms and a ferret’s face who made dainty sandwiches and put out bowls of nuts for the meetings. A petition bearing 500 names was handed in to the Council but what could they do? The Grange was on the open market. Preventing a pop star from making his home there was way beyond their remit.
Belle found it all rather amusing, but to her surprise Jacy was furious. How dare they? It made him all the more determined to fulfil the locals’ every fear, if he could.
He did. He surpassed himself. Because he was so hurt.
And now, after six dreadful years here, it is up to Belle to persuade Jacy to move again.
‘So you are happy to let me phone the agents with a firm offer this afternoon?’
‘Suit yourself…’ he started to say.
‘Now I don’t want you coming on strong afterwards and backing out and saying you knew nothing about it and it was all my idea.’
Jacy stares at her warily. The silence between them stretches taut and hums like a live wire. ‘But it is your idea, Belle, nothing to do with me.’
She is only just back from the launderette, a good six miles there and back, biting her lips all the way in case the bright red Jeep, the only vehicle they have left, failed to get her there and back, and in no mood to put up with his sulks. Of course there is a large industrial machine in the basement but that doesn’t work and nobody seems to be willing to mend it. It is obsolete, apparently, gone out of production since Jacy bought it. And what’s he been doing while she’s been away? There is one simple answer to that—nothing! Or drinking wine.
Belle turns on Jacy, the golden ringlets piled up on her head bobbing about with righteous rage. Before she speaks she makes an attempt to control her voice. She’d love to slap that smirk off his face because there’s nothing that suits Jacy more these days than riling Belle, and she knows it.
‘You’re a middle-aged man, dammit, going grey, with the start of a paunch and you behave like a bloody great spoilt kid and wonder why everyone laughs at you…’
‘You’re sick.’
But Belle can’t stop. She has reached breaking point. ‘There’s not a madly excited market out there ready to pay the kinds of prices you’re expecting, dickhead. We’ll be lucky if this solicitor guy follows through on behalf of his mysterious clients who seem so interested in this…’
‘I thought you understood my needs.’
Her voice, so carefully modulated for so long, rises to a manic scream. ‘Your needs, Jacy! Your boring needs! Don’t talk to me about your needs, I’m up to here with them, I’ve had years of them and they’re boring, BORING, BORING! I am sick of hearing you pouring out your anguish, blaming everyone else for your own miserable plight, waiting for some belated apology from a world that isn’t even out there any more! You’re a broken has-been, Jacy. Since you, life has moved on!’
‘For God’s sake, Belle.’ His voice is thick and urgent and his mouth twists in a sour grimace.
All she ever wanted to do was get married and live happily ever after. Is that too much to ask? She could have had anyone and yet she hung around waiting for this pitiful bastard. All those years. Belle begins to shake, like her voice, hardly coherent. ‘OK, you went to all the great parties and head waiters called you by name. Money grew on trees, then—you only had to click your fingers and women prostrated themselves at your feet. But you messed up, didn’t you, Jacy, and how! And it’s a real downer. Real life is hell, it’s bloody hell for most of us but we don’t just sit on our arses boozing ourselves to death, you gutless bastard!’
‘You hysterical slag! Get out!’
‘Make me!’
He
‘This young man does not sound like a suitable addition to our little community. Dunsop has always been such a quiet, respectable place.’
The locals decided to protest, led by a neighbour, Mrs Julia Farquhar—a tall, tweedy northern woman with fierce bosoms and a ferret’s face who made dainty sandwiches and put out bowls of nuts for the meetings. A petition bearing 500 names was handed in to the Council but what could they do? The Grange was on the open market. Preventing a pop star from making his home there was way beyond their remit.
Belle found it all rather amusing, but to her surprise Jacy was furious. How dare they? It made him all the more determined to fulfil the locals’ every fear, if he could.
He did. He surpassed himself. Because he was so hurt.
And now, after six dreadful years here, it is up to Belle to persuade Jacy to move again.
‘So you are happy to let me phone the agents with a firm offer this afternoon?’
‘Suit yourself…’ he started to say.
‘Now I don’t want you coming on strong afterwards and backing out and saying you knew nothing about it and it was all my idea.’
Jacy stares at her warily. The silence between them stretches taut and hums like a live wire. ‘But it is your idea, Belle, nothing to do with me.’
She is only just back from the launderette, a good six miles there and back, biting her lips all the way in case the bright red Jeep, the only vehicle they have left, failed to get her there and back, and in no mood to put up with his sulks. Of course there is a large industrial machine in the basement but that doesn’t work and nobody seems to be willing to mend it. It is obsolete, apparently, gone out of production since Jacy bought it. And what’s he been doing while she’s been away? There is one simple answer to that—nothing! Or drinking wine.
Belle turns on Jacy, the golden ringlets piled up on her head bobbing about with righteous rage. Before she speaks she makes an attempt to control her voice. She’d love to slap that smirk off his face because there’s nothing that suits Jacy more these days than riling Belle, and she knows it.
‘You’re a middle-aged man, dammit, going grey, with the start of a paunch and you behave like a bloody great spoilt kid and wonder why everyone laughs at you…’
‘You’re sick.’
But Belle can’t stop. She has reached breaking point. ‘There’s not a madly excited market out there ready to pay the kinds of prices you’re expecting, dickhead. We’ll be lucky if this solicitor guy follows through on behalf of his mysterious clients who seem so interested in this…’
‘I thought you understood my needs.’
Her voice, so carefully modulated for so long, rises to a manic scream. ‘Your needs, Jacy! Your boring needs! Don’t talk to me about your needs, I’m up to here with them, I’ve had years of them and they’re boring, BORING, BORING! I am sick of hearing you pouring out your anguish, blaming everyone else for your own miserable plight, waiting for some belated apology from a world that isn’t even out there any more! You’re a broken has-been, Jacy. Since you, life has moved on!’
‘For God’s sake, Belle.’ His voice is thick and urgent and his mouth twists in a sour grimace.
All she ever wanted to do was get married and live happily ever after. Is that too much to ask? She could have had anyone and yet she hung around waiting for this pitiful bastard. All those years. Belle begins to shake, like her voice, hardly coherent. ‘OK, you went to all the great parties and head waiters called you by name. Money grew on trees, then—you only had to click your fingers and women prostrated themselves at your feet. But you messed up, didn’t you, Jacy, and how! And it’s a real downer. Real life is hell, it’s bloody hell for most of us but we don’t just sit on our arses boozing ourselves to death, you gutless bastard!’
‘You hysterical slag! Get out!’
‘Make me!’
He
Similar Books
