I was flopping about on Saturday morning, half-heartedly looking at paint colours on my phone, when it pinged with an email. Still a rare enough occurrence to warrant my immediate attention – I took a look.
I recognised the Hickleton Press logo straight away, thanks to the Hillary hunt. My first thought was one of panic, wondering what on earth Ashley had dragged me into this time, and whether the second person in under a year had taken out a restraining order against me.
But this was nothing to do with Hillary. I skimmed down, had to go back to the top three times to check I was reading it right.
Hickleton Press loved Squash Harris.
As in, enough to want to include it in their top children’s magazine. Enough to make an offer that made my ears pop. Not that the money mattered, but the faith in Squash Harris it implied did. A lot.
I knew that comic was bleepin’ brilliant.
I called Ellen.
‘’Ello?’
‘Hamish, is that you?’
‘Nope.’
‘Hamish, it’s Jenny. Can I speak to Mummy? Is she there?’
‘Not Hamish.’
‘Okay… well, whoever it is, please give the phone to Mummy.’
‘You have to guess.’ I could hear him wriggling with glee.
‘Is it… Superman? Batman? Admiral Nelson?’
‘No-o-o-o-o!’ Hamish squealed.
‘Well, then, you have to give me a clue.’
‘I once ate a whole camel ’cos I was hungry and then floated down a river and was looking for treasure and there was a big hole in the ground like a giant long slide that went down, down, down to an underground cave with a dragon what breathed ice instead of fire inside and… Oh, Mummy’s shouting I have to get my shoes on. Bye, Jenny.’
The phone beeped off.
I’d call round later. It would be nicer to give the great news in person, and Ellen might need help looking for her phone.
I was rereading the email for the ten-thousandth time and musing over how Mack had played down the fact that his ‘contacts’ who could help with the comic included a wife who wrote bestsellers for a giant publishing company, when two cars pulled up in the clearing. I’d done a sterling job of ignoring the slamming doors and clacking heels the night before, but this time I peeped out to see the estate agent climb out of one car. And then Ashley emerged from the other.
If her grin had been any bigger it would’ve swallowed the clearing up whole.
My heart sank even as my mouth let out a bark of nervous, guilty laughter. Ashley had been right – it was a cunning plan. Then, as I watched through the window, two more cars screeched up, doors flinging open to let half the members of the book club spill out, followed by what seemed to be an impossible number of small children.
Ellen and her youngest four, Kiko with Lily, balancing Hannah on one hip. Sarah with Edison and Lucille with her eight-year-old son, Toronto. I careened out of the back door and round to the front without even thinking about putting some shoes on first.
The adults were now assembled in front of the bewildered estate agent, while the kids clustered round the bottom of a tree, watching Toronto dangle from one of the branches.
The estate agent was protesting. ‘The appointment was made with Naomi Brook. Nobody else is allowed in. It’s policy.’
There were nudges and rolled eyes. Naomi Brook was the main character in The Gingerbread House.
‘We are not letting her loose in that house alone,’ Ellen muttered, out of the agent’s earshot.
‘That can’t be true,’ Kiko, straightening her newfound backbone, said. ‘What if we all want to buy the house together, as a rental property?’
‘Then you should have told me in advance. The owners have asked for particular discretion in this case. And I can’t possibly allow children inside. I’m sorry.’
By this point, the owners had come to investigate. Hillary pushed her sunglasses up past her perfect fringe, frowning. ‘Is there a problem here?’
The estate agent whirled around. ‘No!’ she simpered. ‘It’s handled. I’ve explained that viewings are by named appointments only. The others will have to arrange something for another time. This isn’t an open house, after all! Now, Naomi, would you like to come this way?’
Naomi Brook appeared to be frozen to the spot. The only thing indicating she remained alive was her continuously changing complexion, like a lava lamp, fading from white to pink, through to green then back to white again.
Sarah, never one to wait and see what happened when she could instead prod someone into action, did precisely that, with a good hard poke in the ribs. ‘Urgh,’ Naomi/Ashley groaned, then sucked in an enormous, gasping breath as though she had literally forgotten to breathe for a few minutes.
She stammered. ‘I… I love you.’
‘Right.’ Hillary rolled her eyes. ‘Mack, keep an eye on her. And I don’t see why everyone can’t look round. The kids can stay outside. Julie can watch them. Maybe we’ll get a little bidding war going.’ She tossed her head at the estate agent. ‘If you’d been doing your job properly, you’d have thought of that. Now, are you showing them or do you need me to do that too?’
‘Wait,’ Mack said, sounding more than a little resigned.
‘What?’ Hillary snapped.
‘Who’s Julie?’ Kiko asked. ‘I’m not leaving my baby with a stranger.’
‘I think that would be me,’ I said. ‘Julie, Jenny… same difference.’
‘These people don’t want to buy the house.’ Mack sighed.
‘Shut up, Mack.’ Hillary spoke through gritted teeth. ‘They haven’t looked at it yet.’
‘They’re Jenny’s friends.’
‘Who’s Jenny?’
‘Julie.’
‘For the record, I’m more of an acquaintance,’ Lucille chipped in.
‘Is this true?’ Hillary whirled on me. ‘Is this another one of your attempts to sabotage my house sale? You’ve got a bloody nerve.’
‘How would this sabotage the house sale?’ I asked, hackles rising.
‘Because once this genuine buyer saw all these feral children rampaging about—’ a fair enough description, as illustrated by the triplets now charging past brandishing sticks, while Toronto waddled after them lugging a boulder ‘—they’d obviously not want to move here.’
‘The truth is, we’re a book club,’ Ashley said, sufficiently recovered to form a sentence. ‘And we all absolutely love your novels. I personally have read every one over twelve times. You are such an inspiration, and we are honoured to have you living locally, even if only for a short while. I’ve written to your agent so many times inviting you to the book club. It would mean everything, if you could come. Just pop in for a few minutes. We meet in The Common Café, so you can walk it if the weather’s good…’
‘You like my books?’ Hillary asked, in disbelief. ‘You like my books?’
‘I love them,’ Ashley squeaked. ‘We all do.’
‘Ahem.’ Lucille coughed. ‘No offence, but some of us prefer deeper literary themes. Preferably something that isn’t anti-feminist.’
‘What?’ Hillary looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy, her round head swinging from Ashley to Lucille and back. ‘Deeper literary themes? Anti-feminist? Are you joking? I’ve won the Camberley Literary Award for Feminist Literature. One of the judges was French! Right. I’ve had enough. Which one of you is…’ she leaned in and read the estate agent’s folder ‘… Naomi Brook? You can view the house. You book-club people can leave. Now. And take these children with you.’
Ashley was gobsmacked for the second time in fifteen minutes. ‘Naomi Brook,’ she echoed, slowly and clearly.
‘Yes. That’s what I said. Where is she?’
‘She doesn’t know,’ Ashley said. ‘She doesn’t recognise the name. It’s not her.’
Having reached the same conclusion, the others now turned to me. It was a useful distraction, seeing as Lucille looked set to gouge Hillary’s eyes out.
I screwed up my face, bit the side of my cheek so hard I left a bruise. Eventually managed to come up with something. ‘I guess there’s more than one Hillary West living in Sherwood Forest?’
It was then I saw Mack, eyes wide open, an expression of utter horror on his face.
‘It’s okay,’ I blabbered. ‘Just a case of mistaken identity. I sent a form off to the DVLA to see who owned the car, back when you were being all cryptic and mysterious. And when I saw it was Hillary West, I put two and two together and made… ninety-two.’
‘But this Hillary West is an author too,’ Sarah said. ‘She’s won an award. There can’t be two authors called Hillary West from round here, surely?’
‘Number one,’ Hillary ground out, ‘I’m not from “round here”. I hate it here, which is why I’m trying to sell this chuffing house, so I can finally move on with my life. And, two.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I am not Hillary West. I’m Sienna Stracken. Author of the prize-winning literary classic The Wheel of Woman. I do not write romance-by-numbers drivel.’
‘Oh, my life,’ Lucille shouted. ‘Can I just say, I’m your biggest fan!’
Ashley burst into tears, letting out a sound an elephant might make if someone trod on its trunk.
‘So, was it an actual wheel or not?’ Sarah asked, before Ellen gave her a shove. ‘Yeah, now’s probably not the time. Forget I asked.’
‘But if you’re not Hillary West, who is?’ Kiko asked. ‘I thought the only other person living here was Mack.’
We all looked at Mack. If Charlotte Meadows had hoarded a sculpture entitled ‘Angriest Man in the World’, it now stood here on the scrubby grass.
‘You are flippin’ kidding me,’ Sarah murmured. Ashley wiped her nose on her blue spotty mac and peered closer.
Ellen appeared to be the only one of us capable of rational speech, given that Lucille was now off to one side gushing over Sienna Stracken. ‘You’re her? Hillary West?’ she asked, in the same gentle voice she used to coax Billy down from the roof of the greenhouse.
Mack furrowed his eyebrows until they almost became a moustache. Crossed his arms then stuck them on his hips. ‘No. And yes.’
Hah! Ellen’s gentle voice was irresistible.
‘Hillary West is a pen-name?’
‘No.’
‘But you are her?’
‘This could be bigger news than we thought,’ Sarah said, glancing at me.
‘I’m him,’ Mack replied, emphatically.
‘But how can you be him, when she’s a she, and how can you be Hillary West, when you’re Mack?’ Ashley wailed.
Good question. Twin ribbons of hurt and foolishness tangled themselves round my internal organs.
‘My name is Hillary Mackenzie West. When your name makes people automatically assume you’re the opposite gender, it’s not unusual to go by your middle name. However, my publisher decided that if readers happened to assume I was a woman, that would sell more books.’
I uttered a noise, something like a strangled snort. Mack’s eyes flickered over in my direction. His gaze caught mine, and we froze there. I couldn’t tell if he felt mad at me for blabbing to Ashley, forcing him to reveal himself, or regretful for covering up something so momentous when I’d shared my worst secrets.
He shook his head, narrowing one eye slightly.
Okay, then. Mad it was.
The estate agent cleared her throat and summoned up a cracked smile. ‘Um, is there anyone who actually wants to view the house today? Naomi? No? Right, I’ll leave you to make your own way back. Mr and Mrs West, I’ll see you at your four o’clock viewing.’ She started marching over to her car, taking a sudden swerve in Mack’s direction, and prattling, ‘I love your books! The Way It Was got me through my darkest days, after I lost Horatio. I mean, I know losing a terrapin isn’t quite the same as losing your husband, but the way Helena managed to keep going, well!’ She sucked in a breath. ‘Anyway. I’ll see you at four.’
‘Ms Johnson?’ Mack said in a tone that sent every bird in the forest flapping for cover.
‘Um. Yes?’ She paused, key fob pointed at the car.
‘Can you please vet the rest of the day’s appointments to ensure they are serious buyers? And make sure they know we’re prepared to negotiate on price if it means a quick sale. Failing that, give Fisher a call. Tell him I’ve changed my mind.’
Mack stalked off out of sight. I stood there, limbs like concrete, listening to the pounding of blood in my ears.
‘Jenny, look, I did brought you this,’ Jonno said, hands extended. ‘To make you feel happy.’
‘Thanks, Jonno. You’re awesome.’ I attempted a wobbly smile.
‘Do you love it?’ he asked. ‘Here, you can keep it.’
‘Yes. I love it because you gave it to me,’ I said, picking it up. ‘And, ooh!’ I pantomimed surprise. ‘It did make me feel happier, you’re right!’
I wasn’t lying, either. Amazing what an eight-inch dead slug could do for a girl’s mood.
Ellen dragged me back to her house, where we kept going over and over things, until the only possible distraction was a mass game of Hunt and Destroy.
‘This game is a cruel parody of real-life events,’ I whispered to Ellen, both of us pressed underneath her car on the driveway. ‘The Hillary hunt has destroyed things with my best friend.’
Ellen rolled her eyes over to me, while managing to keep her head completely still. ‘He just needs time. He knows you didn’t mean to out him.’
We waited while two pairs of trainers, one wellington boot and a flipper flapped past, accompanied by loud shushing and giggles.
‘He’s realised I tried to out his wife.’ I shuddered. ‘He probably thinks she’s right, and I am trying to sabotage the house move.’
‘Were you?’ Ellen asked, in that gentle, tell-me-everything voice again.
‘No!’ I retorted, as loud as was possible in the middle of Hunt and Destroy.
‘But perhaps you were trying to sabotage something else?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘It would be understandable if your feelings had slipped over from friendship into attraction, Jenny. Especially with him being separated when you met. If you developed feelings for a man you thought was single, it’s hard to wind those back in again.’
‘My feelings have not slipped over! I don’t find Mack attractive!’
‘Oh, come off it. Everyone finds Mack attractive. The difference is whether you act on those feelings. If they’ve grown into more than “well, yes, he’s yummy but looks aren’t everything and, more to the point, he’s legally married, end of, move on”, into “I can’t stop thinking about him. I do stupid things that end up hurting people because my head is so full of him there’s no room left for rational thought” then you need to do something about it.’
‘Like what?’ I asked, terrified she was right, and I’d called Ashley in a subconscious attempt to force who I’d thought was Hillary into behaving in a way that made Mack not want to be with her any more and stay with me instead.
‘Move? Or let him move. Seriously, you can’t mess with someone’s marriage. If they’re really making another go of it, you must respect that and keep the hell away.’
‘I do respect that. I hate myself for having these feelings. And you don’t have to worry. Mack isn’t interested in me anyway.’
‘Jenny, he went to a stranger’s nightmare wedding just to make you feel better.’
‘He didn’t do anything to indicate he has feelings.’
‘Apart from drive you several hundred miles and back, spend the whole time looking out for you, dance with you all night and pay for the whole thing.’
‘He was being a friend.’
‘Really? Does a friend need to shave off his beard in order to—?’
‘POW POW POW POW POW!’
To my huge relief, we were destroyed.
And honestly, if Ellen was even partway right, and my stupid, evil emotions had snuck up and taken control of my rational, moral brain, I might find a way to destroy myself with more than a potato gun.