LITMIR.BIZ

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laughed. ‘Of course. And laundry facilities. This is a sixteen-man crew, plus nine live-in cast. Trust me, a private house cannot deal with that amount of laundry.’

      Tish was to provide beds in the house for Dorian Rasmirez and four of the film’s main stars, including Viorel Hudson and the infamous Sabrina Leon. Everyone else would sleep, eat, bathe and generally exist in a makeshift gypsy camp in the grounds. Apparently, half the crew were still lost somewhere in the Derbyshire countryside but, true to her word, Rainbow had shown up at Loxley at the crack of dawn with the other half, hammering and drilling and installing like a troupe of whirling dervishes. Unless one were deaf, or blind, or ideally both, it was hard to see how exactly one was supposed not to notice them. Or how one was supposed to relax, when an important and no doubt irascible Hollywood director one had never met was about to turn up on one’s doorstep, there were no clean towels anywhere in the house, and one’s son was tearing down the hallways shrieking with excitement and yelling, ‘Ben Ten Alien Force! Jet Ray!’ at anyone who came within ten feet of him. Thank God it was only Mr Rasmirez arriving today, thought Tish. Abel would need a shot of horse tranquillizer before the actors turned up.

      ‘Oh my goodness. I think it’s him. Is it him?’

      Tish was upstairs in the blue bedroom, one of Loxley’s less shabby, vaguely more presentable guest suites, plumping up the pillows for the third time in as many minutes and driving Mrs D mad with last-minute requests – wouldn’t a Hollywood director expect a soap dish without chips on it? Did Mrs D think it wise to leave a dyptique Figuier candle by the bed, or was that a blatant fire hazard? Through the open window, she saw a dark green Golf pulling up, its gears screaming for mercy before the engine finally cut out with an unhealthy sounding ‘pop’.

      ‘Whoever it is, they’re a rotten driver,’ said Mrs D, smoothing down the Liberty bedspread and shooing Tish out of the room. Mrs Drummond had come to terms with Tish’s decision to allow Loxley to be ‘invaded’, as she put it, by a swarm of ghastly Americans. She understood the economic rationale. But she didn’t have to like it.

      ‘Would he drive a hatchback, do you think?’ asked Tish. ‘I’d rather imagined a red Ferrari.’

      The doorbell rang. Embarrassed at herself for being so flustered, Tish patted down her flyaway hair and hurried downstairs to answer it.

      Standing outside the door, on flagstones that looked as old as the surrounding hills, Dorian gazed up in wonder at the house. It was even better close up than it had been from the end of the drive, and a thousand times better than it had looked in Rainbow’s pictures. It was grander than the Thrushcross Grange of his imagination, with its picture windows and turrets and exquisite, sweeping expanse of oak-dotted parkland but. from a cinematographer’s point of view, it was utter perfection. He couldn’t have asked for a more romantic house, a more English house. As you drove into the garden proper, you crossed a wide, dancing silver river by means of a positively Shakespearean stone bridge (what scenes could I shoot there, I wonder?). Even the yew hedges were a gift: dark and brooding and so thick they must have been planted when the house was built. From the second he saw Loxley, Dorian was in love. Suddenly last night’s row with Chrissie and the frustrations of his journey seemed to melt away, like stubborn pockets of snow in the spring sunshine.

      No one had answered the doorbell. He pressed it again, picturing Loxley’s cantankerous elderly owner hobbling to the front door, a curse on her pursed, cat’s-arse lips. Moments later the door flew open. Dorian found himself face to face with a ravishingly pretty girl.

      ‘Hello,’ the girl smiled. ‘You must be Mr Rasmirez.’

      ‘That’s right.’ Dorian smiled back. He was glad to see the maids here were not expected to wear uniform. All that stuffy British upper-class posturing made him break out in hives. Indeed, if this girl’s clothes were anything to go by, Loxley Hall’s dress code made California look formal. In her late twenties, slim and petite, with a natural, tomboyish beauty that effortlessly outshone the surgically perfected look of LA girls, she was wearing cut-off jeans and espadrilles, and a faded pink T-shirt with some charity logo on it that reflected the pink of her cheeks and her incredible, wide, palest pink mouth. She wore no make-up, and her wild blonde hair was tied back with what looked suspiciously like a scrunched-up pair of panties. Tendrils kept escaping across her face, so that she was constantly blowing and swatting them away as she spoke.

      ‘Is Mrs Crewe at home? Letitia Crewe? I’m afraid I’m a little later than I anticipated. I—’

      ‘I’m Tish Crewe,’ said the girl, cheerfully extending an unmanicured hand.

      Dorian was so surprised, he half expected to hear the anvil-like clang of his jaw hitting the floor, in true cartoon style. This girl owns this house? It took a good ten seconds for the WI battleaxe of his imagination to fade to black, and for him to regain the power of speech.

      ‘Hi,’ he stammered, dropping his battered suitcase and shaking Tish’s hand. ‘I’m Dorian Rasmirez.’

      Trish looked at him curiously, and he realized he must have been staring. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You’re not exactly what I expected.’

      ‘Nor are you,’ said Tish, grinning. ‘I thought you’d be driving a Ferrari.’

      Just then, a battered-looking lorry rumbled through the gates, clattering its way over the bridge and pulling up behind Dorian.

      ‘Hey, boss, sorry we’re late.’ A burly-looking man jumped out of the cab, followed by an exhausted-looking young girl and … wasn’t that Mrs Johns from the village shop? ‘Our sat-nav lost the will to live somewhere north of Manchester.’

      ‘Don’t worry,’ said Dorian. ‘So did mine. Miss Crewe, I’d like you to meet Chuck MacNamee, my crew director.’

      Tish extended a hand. As she did so a small human missile appeared out of nowhere in the hallway behind her and flew directly into Dorian’s stomach, winding him and almost knocking him off his feet.

      ‘Oh my God,’ Tish gasped, ‘I am so sorry! Abel! Apologize to Mr Rasmirez this instant.’

      The missile looked up sheepishly. For the second time in as many minutes, Dorian did a double take. Jesus. It’s Heathcliff. The little boy had jet-black hair and wary, watchful blue eyes.

      ‘Sorry,’ Abel said, a tad unconvincingly given his broad, cheeky smile. ‘I was being Ben Ten and you were the Alien Force.’

      ‘I do apologize.’ Tish blushed, as the boy spun around and ran off down the hall.

      ‘That’s quite all right,’ said Dorian. ‘We invading aliens are tougher than we look, you know.’

      After Chuck, Deborah and the others had been introduced and driven round to the back of the house to join the rest of the crew, Tish took Dorian inside.

      ‘Sorry again about my son. He’s been terribly overexcited about all this,’ Tish explained. ‘I think the whole village is, to be honest. Heaven knows how Marjorie Johns managed to hijack your lorry already. Come on in.’

      Dorian followed her into the hallway. It was considerably less grand inside than the façade of the house suggested. The floors were of the same, rough-hewn stone, more appropriate to a farmhouse than a stately home, and the staircase, though broad and sweeping, was visibly scratched and its runner stained. Kid-related detritus was everywhere: a three-wheeled scooter propped against an antique chest, a pair of muddy Wellington boots kicked off in a hurry into opposite corners, diecast trains lined up carefully at the foot of the stairs then abandoned for a more interesting game. Dorian thought of Saskia’s neatly ordered playroom at the Schloss. Chrissie had colour-coded every toy to within an inch of its life, no mean feat when everything was in varying shades of pink.

      ‘Sorry about the mess,’ said Tish, reading his mind.

      ‘Not at all,’ said Dorian, adding truthfully, ‘you don’t look old enough to have a son.’

      ‘I feel old enough, believe me.’ Tish rolled her

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