Ten Steps to Happiness

‘I don’t hate her,’ said the General mildly. ‘As a matter of fact I think she looks delightful…In a largish sort of way.’

‘Well, good. Because I’m about to persuade her to come and see us. She’s going to be our first celebrity refugee. What do you think about that?’

Grey sat back with amusement to observe the General’s reaction to this new autocratic management style. He was amazed, actually, that Jo had managed to prevent herself from adopting it from the beginning. The house had been unofficially ready to receive people for a fortnight now and so far the ‘Guest Selection Board Meetings’, as Jo, back in full professional mode, now insisted on calling the Fiddleford Four’s rather goofy and extremely argumentative confabs, had not been a great success. There had been five meetings altogether, each one angrily and prematurely disbanded because three of the four board members could never agree. On anything. At the last meeting even Charlie, the most tolerant of men, had walked out before the end.

‘What’s that?’ said the General stiffly. ‘The adorable little fat lady? Invited here? Don’t you think we should have some sort of conference about this before you take the law into your own hands?’

Grey McShane chuckled.

‘The meetings,’ said Jo, using her most reasonable voice (also unfortunately the one most guaranteed to infuriate her father-in-law) ‘don’t seem to be getting us anywhere. And the fact is – the fact is – they’re not going to increase our overdraft again. Unless we do something pretty soon, we are seriously going to have to start selling pieces of furniture—’

‘I’m aware of that,’ interrupted the General haughtily and then, uncertain how to continue the argument in the face of such appalling news, repeated himself, before turning lamely towards Grey for help.

Grey shrugged. ‘She’s right, you know. These meetings are a bloody waste o’ time.’

‘Fine,’ he snapped. ‘Fine. Have it your own way. Of course I know you will anyway. Don’t consult me. After all it’s no longer my house…’

‘Och, belt up,’ said Grey good-naturedly. The General pretended not to hear. He picked up his newspaper, opened it at a random page, and managed, apparently, to be instantly engrossed.

Jo and her father-in-law’s relationship had not grown any easier over the past months, in spite of their shared trauma at the hands of the government slaughtermen, their pleasure at the coming baby, and even their shared love of Charlie. Jo had employed all her best, most charming tactics to try to win him round but to no avail. She and the General had argued the very first time they met, and it seemed they were incapable of doing anything else.

Jo tended to lay undue emphasis on the retired General’s utterly irrelevant political opinions (which were always unfashionable and occasionally, it has to be said, quite unpleasant). She took offence to almost every opinion he had. The General simply took offence to Jo. Which was unfair because she had enormous warmth and kindness, and occasionally, when her fashionable opinions allowed it, and she was feeling brave enough, she was even capable of being quite funny. But she was too modern, too bossy, too equal, too clever. Altogether too many things that a fading General would be bound to find alarming.

And now she was living in his house, or rather he was living in hers. She was imposing ridiculous new telephone systems on him, and inviting people he didn’t know to come and stay. Because although the dream of opening a refuge had at least partly been his, the reality of having paying strangers in the house was of course quite different. More so for him than for any of them. And if sharing his old home with a kind but bossy daughter-in-law was difficult, then sharing it with incomprehensible new telephone ‘units’ and a lot of ghastly, self-pitying ‘celebrities’ was likely to be more than even the most open-minded of Generals, could be expected to stand.

Jo was by no means oblivious to these complications and not, in spite of his hostility, completely unsympathetic to them either. But it didn’t alter the fact that she intended to get her way. She hesitated, feeling unsure exactly how to proceed. ‘So that’s agreed then, is it?’ she said, to the back of his newspaper. He ignored her. ‘Um…General? [He had never asked her to call him James]…You quite like the idea of having Messy down here? To stay?…I mean she’s only small fry, I know—’

‘Small?’ bellowed Grey.

‘—but it’s a start, isn’t it? I don’t think we should try to charge her too much, do you? We should probably see what sort of a deal we can drum up with one of the mags. Try to squeeze them for a bit of cash, don’t you think? While we cut our teeth, sort of thing.’ She knew they weren’t really listening, and they knew that she was only pretending to consult them. They didn’t bother to reply. ‘Anyway,’ she said, sounding determinedly upbeat. ‘Ha! Here I am, counting my chickens. She may not even want to come!’ And with that Jo hurried out of the room.

‘Officious little minx,’ mumbled the General quickly, while she was still in earshot.

‘Aye,’ muttered Grey. ‘But she’ll be the saving of this place. Saving of all of us I should think. We’re bloody lucky she puts up with having us around.’

Once again, the General didn’t feel tempted to respond.

Messy Monroe had given up answering the telephone by the time Jo summoned the courage to put in her first call. With all the hacks and their editors, and the PR people and the publishers, she and Chloe had lived the last couple of days to a backdrop of answer machine babble. It just so happened that while Jo (having heard nothing and feeling increasingly desperate) was leaving her seventh unanswered message in two hours on Messy’s machine, Messy was alone in the room, and her brain was lying idle. Which meant the odd snippet of welcome information kept seeping through.

‘…keep calling you and I know what a tremendous amount of stress you must be under…worked with a lot of people in your position…even at the rough end of it myself recently…beautiful media-free sanctuary…isolated old manor house…lovely walks…Chloe to play…very very comfortable and guaranteed reporter-free…’

As Jo spoke there was another knock on Messy’s front door. Another creepy reporter, she assumed, carrying a bunch of flowers and pretending to be her friend. (She was wrong in fact. The creepy flowers were from Jo.) Anyway it was the last straw. She lunged for the telephone.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello!’ Jo couldn’t disguise her relief. She started laughing. Messy had taken her call. She would come and stay. She would bring money with her. Everything was going to be OK. ‘Goodness! Ha ha. Goodness! Messy! Oh! Are you there?’

‘What? Of course I am!’

‘Of course you are. Of course you are.’ Jo took a deep breath. ‘No, I meant to say are you OK?’

‘What? I have to tell you, you probably think I’m loaded, but I spent it all. I spent everything. That’s the main reason I wrote the book. So you’re not going to be interested in me anyway.’

Which took Jo by surprise. She had imagined someone much fiercer, but Messy sounded terrified. Poor thing. The realisation gave Jo’s confidence a welcome boost, and within seconds the slick PR-girl spiel was slipping off her tongue as if she’d never taken a break from using it.

Messy’s financial status didn’t matter, Jo said. She explained – and it was one of the few things the Fiddleford Four had all agreed on – that guests’ rates depended on their ability to pay, and on the income she could draw (and split down the middle) from any exclusive interview deals she arranged. ‘I’ve been a senior partner [only a minor exaggeration] in one of the top public relations firms in London for over ten years. In fact we’ve met. We actually worked together on a couple of P.A.s a few years ago…But perhaps you don’t remember.’

‘Oh really?’ said Messy, trying politely to muster some enthusiasm but still sounding miserable, as she always did when people reminded her of her past. ‘Which ones?’

‘Anyway we can talk about that when you get down here,’ said Jo, realising it wasn’t helping. ‘Messy, I expect the last thing you want to think about right now is giving any more interviews—’

‘Ha! You’re right there.’

‘Exactly. And you see the point of your staying here would be twofold. Partly, just to get a break from the madness, so to speak…’

Messy laughed grudgingly. She knew she was being manipulated, possibly even slightly patronised. But for once she didn’t care. She was so tired of making decisions for herself. They were always the wrong ones. And Jo seemed to know exactly what to say and do. She was making Messy feel better than she had in days.

‘—And partly so I can help you turn this publicity around; launch what I always call a damage-limitation counterattack.’ Messy laughed again. ‘Any interviews you do decide to give would be very, very carefully handled. I can negotiate the deal, ensure we have copy approval, sit in on the interview. And so on. I hate to blow my own trumpet, Messy, but I do have a great deal of experience in this area.’

‘I bloody well hope you do. So who else have you had to stay down there?’

‘One of the most essential components of this sanctuary,’ said Jo (she had prepared this one earlier), ‘is secrecy. Obviously…’

‘Yes. I suppose so.’

‘So though there’s nothing I’d love to do more than to reel off a long list of names, I can’t. I just can’t. Basically, Messy, all I can say is – if you’re not happy with the service we provide then don’t pay us! Simple as that! This operation has got to work on trust. That’s very important. We’ve got to trust you and you’ve got to trust us…’

‘Hm…’ said Messy, pretending she wasn’t already convinced.

‘We can send a car to come and pick you up right away. We could be there in three or four hours…’

‘Hm…’

‘And we’ve just bought a donkey, which might entertain Chloe.’

The car from Fiddleford arrived at Messy’s door seven and a half hours later. Les, the farm hand, had forgotten to take a map and, for reasons known only to himself, had rejected the offer of Charlie and Jo’s more comfortable car and taken instead the old Land Rover, which was filthy and could never go above forty miles an hour. He’d also, poor fellow, managed to get lost four times on the same stretch of motorway before finally taking the right exit.

Messy gabbled jovially as she and Chloe clambered into the Land Rover, fighting their way between horses’ head collars, bits of bind-a-twine, stray potatoes gone to seed, and piles of empty paper sacks. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘that the state of this car isn’t any sort of indicator of what’s to come!’ The truth was, after such a long wait, she was relieved to see any car at all. ‘You know I hadn’t even taken a number for Fiddlefrom. Fiddleforth. I was beginning to wonder if the whole conversation hadn’t been a dream!’

Les looked at her morosely for a while, only faintly noticing that she had been talking, and certainly not expecting to make a response. Suddenly his face lit up. ‘Well I never!’ he said. ‘But you’re that fat lady off of the TELLY!’

‘Of course I am. Who did you think I was?’

‘I SAW YOU ON TELLY!’

‘Did you watch Question Time?’

‘A few nights back, it was. I don’t know why. A bit like one o’ them quizzie things.’