‘That’s what they always say in the books,’ Janey replied cheerfully. ‘All the way through.
Right up until the very last Chapter ...’
Chapter 32
Maxine’s high hopes for the lucrative toilet-roll commercial — founded on the basis of having once slept with the casting director — had been cruelly scuppered by his decision to give the job to the actress with whom he was currently sleeping instead. The disappointment of losing out was made all the harder to bear by the almost universal lack of sympathy.
‘What a waste,’ said Guy, straight-faced. ‘All that talent down the pan.’
‘If you’d got it,’ Josh innocently enquired, ‘would it have been a leading role?’
Ella, who didn’t get the so-called jokes, said loyally, ‘Well I’m glad you aren’t doing it. I told my teacher Mrs Mitchell that you were going to sit on the toilet on television with your knickers down and she said it sounded horrible.’
‘I was not going to sit on the toilet with my knickers down,’ said Maxine through gritted teeth. No wonder Mrs Mitchell had given her such a sour look when she’d picked Ella up from school yesterday.
‘Josh said you were.’
‘Josh is a little toad about to get his Gameboy confiscated.’
‘That’s not fair!’ protested Josh. ‘Dad was the one who told me the joke.’
‘Ah, you mean the hysterically funny leading role joke.’ Maxine glared across the breakfast table at Guy. ‘I suppose it took you hours to think that one up.’
He looked modest. ‘Not at all. As a matter of fact, it came to me in a flush.’
Josh fell about laughing. Even Ella cottoned on to that one.
Maxine realized she was hopelessly outnumbered. ‘You’ll be sorry when I’m famous,’ she snapped. ‘In fact you’re going to be sorry a lot sooner than that.’
There was a familiar glint in her eye. Recognizing it, Josh said weakly, ‘Oh no, she’s going to cook dinner. Not the fish pie, Maxine. Please, anything but that.’
‘Oh yes.’ She smiled, because revenge was so wonderfully sweet. ‘Definitely the fish pie.’
Disappointment gave way to delight, however, when the director phoned Maxine a week later. Katrina, the actress whom he’d intended to favour, had somehow managed to fall out of his bed and break her arm in three places. Shooting started tomorrow. Could Maxine possibly get away at such short notice and step into the breach ...?
Guy was busy in the darkroom. Since she wasn’t prepared to risk life and limb opening the door — limbs being a precious commodity just now — Maxine yelled the news from outside.
‘Oh, what next,’ she heard him sigh. Hardly the encouraging response she might have hoped for. A minute passed before the door opened and Guy, frowning as his eyes adjusted to the light, emerged irritably.
‘No,’ he said, before she could even open her mouth to begin. ‘This is too much, Maxine.
Especially after what happened last time. You’re either working for me or you’re not, but you can’t expect me to allow this kind of thing to carry on. I need someone who’s reliable.’
What a pig, thought Maxine, outraged by his selfish, uncompromising attitude. The fact that Serena was a hopeless incompetent was hardly her fault. Guy had seemed to be so much more good-humoured during the past couple of weeks. And now here he was, reverting to type all over again.
‘But this could be my big break,’ she pleaded, silently willing him to pick up on the pun. If he smiled, she was halfway there. • Guy, however, saw through that little manoeuvre in a trice.
He had no intention of smiling, either. ‘Don’t be obvious,’ he said shortly. ‘The answer’s still no.’
‘But it’s fate ... a chance in a million ... and the kids are back at school now,’ gabbled Maxine, bordering on desperation. In four days she would be earning almost as much as Guy paid her in an entire year. ‘Oh please, let me find you a really and truly one-hundred-per-cent reliable nanny ...’
‘Maxine, forget it. You aren’t going.’
‘But—’
‘No.’ He spoke with a horrible air of finality.
Both Josh and Ella attended the local village school, which made it easy for Janey to pick them up at three-thirty and return them to Trezale House. Paula, thrilled to have been entrusted with the responsibility of visiting the flower market and running the shop single-handedly during Janey’s absence, was almost more excited than Maxine at the prospect of watching her on television when the commercial was finally aired. Janey, less easily impressed, was nevertheless prepared to take care of the children for a few days whilst her sister was away. It was no hardship unless you counted having to sleep in Maxine’s pigsty of a bedroom, and she was glad to be able to do a favour for Guy.
When she pulled up outside the school, Josh and Ella seemed equally pleased to see her.
‘You’re looking after us until Friday,’ Ella declared, and promptly handed her a rolled-up sheet of paper. ‘Here, Janey. I painted a picture of you in class. It’s good, isn’t it? What you have to do is say 'How lovely' and pin it up on the kitchen wall when we get home.’
Janey studied the portrait. Ella had given her yellow hair, an unflattering purple face and fingers like tentacles. Next to her on a two-legged table stood a vast crimson cake complete with a staggering number of candles.
‘Whose birthday is it?’
‘Nobody’s,’ said Ella. ‘But Maxine said you were good at cakes and they’re my favourite, so I thought you might like to make some.’
‘Tell Janey what else you thought,’ prompted Josh slyly.
Ella beamed. ‘I said Maxine was thin and she doesn’t like cooking, but you aren’t thin so that means you must like doing it a lot.’
Guy, who had spent the day working in Somerset photographing an ancient countess and her fabulous jewels for a county magazine, arrived home at seven-thirty. The unfamiliar aroma of gingerbread hit him the moment he opened the front door. The sight of Janey, sitting at the kitchen table with Josh, Ella and practically an entire army of gingerbread men lined up on cooling racks was unfamiliar, too.
