Тилли Бэгшоу – The Inheritance: Racy, pacy and very funny! (страница 14)

Tati brightened. Classroom assistant. Would the trustees go for that?

‘You’d have to do a three-month trial first, so I could assess your suitability for the job.’

‘A trial?’ Tati frowned.

‘Yes. Unpaid, although we’d cover your basic expenses.’

‘Unpaid?’ There was no disguising her outrage now. ‘Thank you, Mr Bingley, but if I’d wanted to volunteer my time I’d have gone directly to Oxfam. No doubt I’ll see you around the village.’ And with that she stormed out, slamming Max Bingley’s office door shut, the smell of burning olive branches lingering in the air behind her.

The bell must have rung while she and Max were talking. Outside the playground was thronged with overexcited children and weary mothers, rolling their eyes at one another as lunchboxes, backpacks and discarded items of uniform were thrust into their outstretched arms.

Blinded with rage, at herself as much as anyone, and desperate to get out of there, Tati stumbled in her high-heeled shoes and careered into one of the fathers. Dropping her Chanel bag onto the asphalt she looked on in horror as its contents spilled everywhere.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ she hissed through gritted teeth.

A stunningly pretty ten-year-old girl, resplendent in what looked like a brand-new St Hilda’s summer uniform of red and white gingham dress, white ankle socks and straw boater with a red ribbon, gasped.

‘She said the “f” word!’ Did you hear her, Jase? She said the “f” word!’

Belatedly, Tati caught the Australian accent. Looking up she saw that the ‘father’ she had bumped into was not a father at all but Jason Cranley, the mute, freckled guy she’d met up at Furlings a few days ago. The little girl must be the daughter, Logan.

‘She’s got cigarettes in her bag!’ Logan squealed accusingly, picking up a half-empty packet of Marlboro reds and shaking them in Tati’s direction. ‘Don’t you know smoking is the most dumbest thing you can ever do? You can die! And you can get wrinkles.’

For some reason this last rejoinder made Tati laugh.

‘Wrinkles? My goodness. That sounds very serious.’

‘It is.’ Logan’s huge, dark eyes widened beneath her long lashes. She really was an extraordinarily pretty child, although it struck Tati that she looked nothing like either her mother or brother. ‘I’ll throw them in the bin for you if you like.’

Jason, who’d watched silently until now, finally found his voice. ‘You can’t throw other people’s property in the bin, Logan.’ Taking the cigarettes from his little sister, he handed them back to Tatiana.

‘No. But you can steal it from under their noses, apparently,’ Tati shot back waspishly, ‘by conning a dying man into leaving you his home.’

Jason blushed. ‘I’m n-n-not the enemy, you know,’ he stammered. ‘None of this will business has anything to do with me.’

‘No, well. I suppose not,’ Tati conceded grudgingly, appraising him more closely than she had done at Furlings a few days ago. He wasn’t bad-looking. But he was very much a boy rather than a man. There was a fragility about Jason Cranley, one might even say an innocence, that made one want to protect and mother him. Perhaps it was the freckles? Tati couldn’t imagine him having sex, although it was clear from the way he blushed and avoided eye contact that he was attracted to her.

‘I’d like it if we could be friends,’ he mumbled.

Tati considered this. She had no problem with Jason Cranley. Only with his greedy, conniving, inheritance-pilfering father. Besides, it might turn out to be useful to have a Cranley family member on her side. She may lack experience as a teacher, but when it came to pulling a young man’s heart strings, or fanning his sexual obsession, Tatiana Flint-Hamilton was very much an old hand. Jason could be her ‘man on the inside’ at Furlings. If she were going to win this legal battle over the will, she would need all the help – and inside information – she could get.

‘Me too,’ she smiled. ‘I had a shitty day, that’s all. Of course we can be friends.’

Reaching out, she touched his arm in a conciliatory gesture and was gratified when Jason blushed as if he were on fire.

‘What was so shitty?’ Jason asked. In her sexy, expensive clothes, exuding glamour like a movie star or a royal princess, it was hard to imagine Tatiana’s days being anything other than gilded and wonderful.

‘Oh nothing.’ She waved a hand dismissively in the direction of the school buildings. ‘The new headmaster doesn’t think I’m capable of ascending to the dizzy heights of village schoolteacher. He wants me to audition to be some PGCE nark’s assistant. An “unpaid trial”, that’s what he offered me. Can you believe the nerve?’

Jason Cranley couldn’t. From his limited first impressions, Tatiana Flint-Hamilton seemed capable of absolutely anything. He certainly wouldn’t have the balls to cross her.

‘Anyway,’ Tati smiled, pulling a cigarette out of her packet ‘I’ll definitely be needing one of these to calm my nerves.’

‘No!’ Logan, who’d been watching this exchange between her brother and the very beautiful lady with interest, shook her finger up at Tati disapprovingly. ‘Wrinkles, remember?’

Tati shook her finger back and lit up. ‘Wrinkles Schminkles.’

To Jason Cranley’s delight, and the other parents’ slack-jawed astonishment, she winked at him as she sashayed out of the playground.

Back at Furlings, Brett Cranley was in the kitchen. Sitting at the table with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his arms folded, he was listening intently to his new neighbour, Gabriel Baxter.

‘They can’t be developed,’ Gabe was saying. ‘The whole valley’s an area of outstanding natural beauty. The only thing they’re good for is farming. And your yields – the estate’s yields – over the last ten years have been dismal.’

‘So why do you want them so badly?’ asked Brett. He liked the young farmer sitting opposite him. In jeans and an open-necked shirt, his naturally pale skin tanned the colour of just-cooked-toast from long summer days spent out in his fields, and with his blond hair flopping over his eyes messily like a handful of straw, Gabriel Baxter came across as honest, ambitious and direct. But Brett Cranley took nothing at face value when it came to business.

‘Because I’d do a better job at farming them,’ said Gabe bluntly. ‘Farming’s my business. It wasn’t Rory’s and it isn’t yours. Plus, they abut my land directly, so I could almost double my holdings and benefit from all those economies of scale.’

‘Why do you want to double your holdings?’ Brett asked.

Gabe looked puzzled. ‘Why not? Wouldn’t you?’

Brett smiled broadly. He liked this boy more and more.

‘I’ll think about it.’

Gabe was itching to close the deal. He’d wanted those fields for years, for all the reasons he’d told Brett, and because they were just so bloody pretty. He wouldn’t be happy till he’d nailed a new ‘Wraggsbottom Farm’ sign onto the gate at the bottom of the lower meadow. For the first time since he’d inherited the farm from his father, he could sense they were within reach. But this was his first meeting with Brett Cranley and he knew he mustn’t push too hard.

‘Thank you.’ Standing up he shook Brett’s hand. Just then the kitchen door opened and Logan came skipping through the door, with Jason trailing in her wake, carrying her schoolbag, blazer and straw hat like a put-upon courtier.

‘Have you met my kids?’ asked Brett, his eyes lighting up at the sight of his daughter, who looked exactly like him.

Gabe smiled at Jason. ‘I met your son.’

‘Oh yeah?’ said Brett, uninterested. ‘Well this is my baby girl.’ He pushed her forward proudly, as if she were a prize vegetable he’d just grown.

‘Hello,’ said Gabe.

Logan stared up at him, her dark eyes like saucers beneath her long, camel-like lashes. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a handsome man in her life. He looked like a prince, or a knight, or a—

‘Say hello to Mr Baxter, Logie,’ Brett prompted. ‘She’s not normally shy,’ he added to Gabe. ‘I think she likes you.’

‘Daddy,’ Logan hissed, blushing vermilion.

‘Oh, come on, pumpkin,’ Brett ruffled her dark hair. ‘I’m only teasing you.’

Gabe said his goodbyes and left. Once he’d gone, Logan swiftly changed the subject. ‘Guess what?’ she asked Brett, making herself an orange squash that was practically neat syrup.

‘What?’

‘Jason’s got a girlfriend.’

Brett looked at his son, half amused and half amazed. ‘Have you? That was quick work. Who is it?’

‘It isn’t anyone. Stop being silly, Logie.’

‘She’s the most beautiful lady I’ve ever seen in my life,’ Logan gushed, between gulps of teeth-rotting orange squash, helping herself to a fistful of McVitie’s chocolate fingers from the jar. ‘She had very tight clothes on and long hair and big boobs. And she winked at Jason in the playground. Everyone saw her.’

‘Who knew the school run could be so exciting?’ said Brett. ‘I should have gone myself.’

He was playing it cool, but inside he was delighted. It had long bothered him that his son was so hopeless with the opposite sex. Brett viewed Jason’s shyness, like his on-and-off depression, as some sort of personal affront. It was almost as if the boy was deliberately asserting his complete ‘otherness’ to Brett and everything he stood for, throwing it in his father’s face: I don’t look like you, I don’t act like you, I don’t think like you. A gorgeous girlfriend – any girlfriend – would be a welcome development indeed.