Page 5 of The Only Way Is Up

Daisy manoeuvred the BMW along increasingly narrow and winding lanes, wishing the relentless rain would stop. One of her windscreen wipers squeaked and had been grating on her nerves since Oxford, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop at a garage and get it fixed. That would involve interacting with members of the public, which ordinarily she didn’t mind, but right now it was all knowing smiles, elbow nudges and whispering. Anyone would think they’d never seen a fanny before.

Hopefully, once she arrived in Shipton Combe, she wouldn’t need to use the car again for a while – she had a boot full of groceries and could get Ocado to deliver whenever she needed to. Everything else she needed was stuffed into a couple of weekend bags, with a nod to practicality rather than glamour. She definitely wasn’t planning any cocktail parties.

Ordinarily October was Daisy’s favourite month of the year; because it marked the beginning of her annual autumn break. Spotlight’s gruelling run of live shows finished in mid-September, and Daisy’s manager and agent were under strict instructions to keep her TV schedule free until the end of the year. She was happy to do the odd interview, brand endorsement or charity thing, but mostly this was her time to relax and unwind. After the NTAs, Daisy usually had no major plans until she and Ruby went skiing the week before Christmas. That was their family time, and something thankfully Christian had shown no interest in – snow sports had been deemed too dangerous while he was on the tennis circuit, which was pretty much his entire life. So he’d never learnt to ski, and Daisy suspected his objection was mostly about embarking on a sport at which he might not immediately shine.

As Daisy waited at some temporary traffic lights on a hedge-lined lane, she thought back to when she and Christian had first met. Christian had taken part in a one-off Spotlight charity special, performing an uncannily good rendition of ‘I Feel It Coming’ by The Weeknd. Since Christian had been largely assumed to be an all-round personality vacuum, the fact that he could hold a tune and occupy a public stage without needing to towel his face every sixty seconds came as a surprise. It was a performance literally nobody asked for, but everybody subsequently talked about.

After the show he approached Daisy in the BBC bar and handed her his phone, casually rolling out the line ‘I think there’s something wrong with my phone – it doesn’t seem to have your number in it.’ Daisy had been at first amused by his confidence, then charmed by his persistence, and finally bowled over by his desire. The news that Christian and Daisy were dating had sent the tabloids wild – he was square-jawed and brooding, while she was a wholesome English Rose with a colourful family history and a messy divorce that the tabloids never tired of raking over.

On Daisy’s insistence they had played the relationship down and kept things classy, mainly for Ruby’s sake, but also because despite her job, Daisy was a private person. Her TV persona was public property, but her personal life was not for sale. She knew Katie was now being bombarded with six-figure offers for her and Christian’s engagement interview and photos; no doubt Benny was getting the same, if not actively encouraging a bidding war. And while Christian would want to make hay while the sun shone, Daisy just wasn’t interested. She’d been reminded in the past week that for every person who was kind and supportive, there were plenty of others who were cruel and judgemental. Lifting the lid on her off-screen world just invited the keyboard warriors in, and she no longer had the stomach for it.

Daisy swung the car towards the gates of Shipton House School, her hair getting soaked in the autumnal downpour as she leaned out of the window to enter a four-digit code on an electronic keypad. The metal gates clanked open and she drove slowly down the impressive drive, taking in the looming grey manor house with Jacobean gables and spooky-looking towers. A dozen or so cottages lay scattered across the fifty or so acres of school grounds, most lived in by staff. She turned off the drive towards Willow Cottage, one of a pair of identical houses built from honey-coloured Cotswold stone. Even from the car she could see that Beech Cottage next door looked cosy and lived-in, with a pair of muddy wellies flumped sideways by the front door and a bicycle with a wicker basket leaning against the wall. She spotted a shadowy flicker of movement in the dim light behind the curtains and wondered who lived there. In contrast Willow Cottage looked dark, cold and abandoned.

Sixteen years ago, this place had seemed hopelessly romantic to Daisy, but that was another life. She remembered being shown around the cottage by an estate agent – Daisy blooming and blissful in pregnancy, Simon full of enthusiasm for the house’s potential as a family hideaway. Now she felt an unexpected wave of mixed emotions as she looked at the tiny wooden porch, the leaded windows and the crooked tiled roof.

For a year or two after Ruby was born, this had been a happy place for Simon and Daisy – a chance for them all to spend time together away from London and the Vultures. But later it was the scene of some of the worst times, including the eventual showdown when Simon had confessed that he had been spending quality time with Archie, his now husband. Daisy hadn’t set foot in this village since, but now wasn’t the time to relive past traumas – God knows, she had enough to deal with in her present.

She dug Simon’s key out of her handbag and climbed out of the car, hurrying through the rain to the cottage. The heavy front door opened into a tiny, dark lounge that reeked of furniture polish and a sickly lavender room spray. Presumably Simon’s cleaner had done a quick whip round in the hope of making it feel lived in; instead it smelled like a pensioner’s sock drawer. On the upside, it was clean enough and the heating was on, with an inviting fire laid in the wood burner, so Daisy would soon have it feeling snug.

By 4 p.m. Daisy was unpacked, hooked up to the WiFi and restored to something vaguely resembling normality by a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich. The rain was easing off, so she decided to go for a walk around the village before it got dark. She put on a pair of wellies and a waxed coat of Archie’s, who was the same height as Daisy and had equally slim hips. Up close, she supposed she could be recognisable, but from afar she might be mistaken for Archie. And anyway, who would be expecting Daisy Crawford to be in Shipton Combe? But it was a small village and realistically she wouldn’t be anonymous for long. So, might as well make the most of it.

She closed the front door and headed across the field towards the school; since it was Saturday, there was nobody around apart from birds and squirrels. She did a lap of the main building, wondering what it must be like to obtain a very expensive education in what was clearly a haunted prison. The place felt familiar but only in the vaguest sense – she and Simon had never socialised or made friends here as a couple. Willow Cottage had always been somewhere they used for running away and hiding. No change there, then.

She made her way along a footpath which followed a row of old beech trees already showing tinges of autumn colour, meandering past a small lake with a weedy and overgrown island in the middle. By the time Daisy made it to the gate that opened onto the main road at the far end of the village, it had started to rain again, so she turned up the collar of Archie’s raincoat and picked up her pace.

Shipton Combe was little more than a road about a quarter of a mile long, with a village hall, children’s play area and tennis court at one end, backing onto a cricket pitch with a smart white pavilion. Pretty houses lined both sides of the road, all seemingly of a similar era to Willow Cottage, which suggested most of the village had been built to accommodate workers at the original Shipton House. Some had names echoing their former role – The Old Laundry, The Old Dairy, The Old Schoolhouse – but now they were all family homes with chimneys belching woodsmoke and windows firmly closed against the increasing deluge.

At the other end of the village a rather lovely Norman church was flanked by a large, ramshackle rectory, opposite the main school gates that Daisy had driven through hours earlier. Next to the rectory was a cosy-looking pub called the Shipton Arms, which looked like it had undergone some gentrification since Daisy had last visited. She remembered it as a shabby, spit-and-sawdust local pub, but now there were signs for organic ales and a venison delivery van parked outside. The door was open, but she resisted the temptation to get out of the rain and order something warming. She could just imagine the headlines if she were spotted knocking back a brandy in the middle of the afternoon.

The rain was coming down in sheets as Daisy hurried towards the school gates, so she didn’t notice the car approaching until it was right behind her, tyres hissing on the wet road. She’d barely glanced at the dark four-wheel drive before it drove at speed through a huge puddle, soaking her from head to toe in a sheet of cold, muddy water.

‘Oh my God! What the fuck?!’ Furious, Daisy turned to watch as the car slammed to a halt; then started to reverse. The driver lowered the window. It was a man with dark hair and a green jumper, looking at her in horror, but Daisy couldn’t tell much more than that because her fringe was now dripping into her eyes.

‘I can’t believe you just did that.’ Daisy waited for an apology so they could at least move past the awkwardness and laugh it off, but the man said nothing, continuing to stare at Daisy, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. She was used to this kind of reaction from people who recognised her, but it wasn’t what she’d expected from somebody who’d just drowned her with a Toyota Land Cruiser. The man finally looked away, then looked back, then looked away again, then silently closed the window. He drove off without a word.

She watched somewhat incredulously as his car swished along the flooded road towards the far end of the village, his tail lights casting red shadows in the standing water.

‘Jesus! What an arsehole!’

She wiped the sleeve of Archie’s coat across her dripping face, but the waxed cotton made the gesture entirely pointless, so shivering, she hurried through the school gates, feeling the cold, clammy squelch of wet socks inside her wellies.

As she half-jogged down the tree-lined driveway in what was now a torrential downpour, she forced her thoughts away from the Toyota Wanker to the slightly more alluring prospect of Christian. She was still furious with him, but this was the longest she’d gone without having sex in six months, and she had to admit she was missing it. Christian was insatiable, and if he was here right now they’d be rushing back to get their wet clothes off, before warming each other up on the rug in front of the fire with a great deal of human friction.

Given the choice, Daisy preferred making love by candlelight in a pillowy nest of bliss, and on these occasions Christian was happy to play the romantic seducer. But he also liked to have spontaneous, dirty sex, wherever and whenever there was a window of opportunity – in her shower, on the kitchen table, even once in the master bathroom at Richard and Judy’s house while everyone partied downstairs. She’d drawn the line at a disabled toilet in BBC Broadcasting House, but he usually managed to talk her round. The way Daisy looked at him made him hard, and the way he looked at Daisy made him hard to resist.

Daisy shivered, this time from more than the cold and wet. Yes, she was still livid with him – he’d made an awful week infinitely worse AND landed her in this miserable village. But maybe she’d call him later and get a few things off her chest, and then they could both take matters into their own hands.

CHAPTER FOUR

As Daisy walked around the old stables towards the warmth and shelter of Willow Cottage, a bicycle whisked past at high speed. She recognised the wicker basket from the house next door and caught a glimpse of a man in a blue anorak and a canvas hat with a large brim. He was emptying provisions from the basket as she walked around the corner – a box of eggs, some muddy vegetables and a very dead chicken with a dangling head and all its feathers. He barely gave Daisy a glance before disappearing inside the house and slamming the door behind him.

The knock came five minutes later, after Daisy had struggled out of her wet coat and boots and was busy draping everything over a couple of chairs by the fireplace to dry. She opened the door a crack to see the same man standing in the rain, holding two bunches of wonky carrots by their green stalks.

‘You got any coffee?’ The accent was more East End than Gloucestershire. Clearly Daisy wasn’t the only outsider in this village.

The question disarmed her; it wasn’t what she was expecting from a man holding carrots. But she nodded, rationalising that she could spare a few instant granules before her next Ocado order. ‘Sure. Hang on, I’ll get you some.’

‘No. Sorry. Can you make me a coffee? I’m not allowed to make it myself.’