Page 15 of Blow Down (The Plumber's Mate)
“Uh, yeah.” I was starting to have a bad feeling about this. Maybe I did ought to hurry it up a bit and find out exactly what Mrs. F-M. had me in for.
I tracked her down, as expected, under the gazebo up by the speakers. Amelia was dressed today in a chic floral silk frock I wouldn’t mind betting she normally kept ’specially for garden parties, polo matches, and days at the races. Her shoes were still sky-high but were strappy wedges rather than stilettos, a note of practicality I wouldn’t have expected given what she was willing to do to her own wood floors.
She fixed me with a look of calm disapproval. “There you are. You missed the bishop’s opening address. It was very inspirational. Oh, and who was that man you came in with? The tall, well-built blond?”
She’d seen us all the way across the field? The woman had eyes like a hawk. I glanced down, and yeah, she had the red-painted talons to match. “Phil. My fiancé.” Still felt weird saying it.
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? Well, tell him I need him at four. We’re short of a few strong men for the tug-of-war.”
Heh. I was looking forward to telling Phil he hadn’t escaped after all. “Yeah, no problem. He’ll be glad to help you out,” I lied through my teeth. Then a thought struck. “Uh, I’d volunteer myself, yeah, but you know. Dodgy hip.”
The second eyebrow joined its mate. “Oh. No, I wasn’t planning to ask you.”
Ouch.
“But I hope you’re all ready for your demonstration.”
“Uh . . . my what now?”
“Your demonstration,” she said ultra-distinctly for the clearly hard-of-thinking. “We’ve just put you down as Psychic, as you didn’t give me any further details of what you’d be doing.” There was a note of disapproval in her voice.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. It threatened to drop out of my bloody bottom too. “Wait a minute. You’re expecting me to put on a show? Like some cut-price Mystic Meg? No way. No way.”
Mrs. F-M. smiled. It was all teeth. “You assured me I could count on you.”
“Yeah, to lend a hand with the barbecue or something. Not to go on stage like a bloody performing monkey.”
Her smile didn’t falter. It was well creepy, given the venom in her tone. “If you didn’t want to do it, you should have made your feelings known earlier. We can’t change the programme now. You’re down for the arena at three, after the birds of prey.”
She’d put it down in the programme and all? I could kill her.
Maybe I could borrow a raptor from the birds of prey people to do it for me.
“What the bloody hell am I supposed to do out there?”
“A demonstration, obviously.” She shrugged, somehow making it look fake even though I was pretty sure the indifference was actually genuine. “Find things. You’re only on for half an hour. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
She turned away. Subject closed. Put up or shut up.
Christ. I reeled away from the gazebo feeling in dire need of a bit of moral support, possibly of the liquid variety.
No, scratch that. This was serious. I needed moral support of the tall, blond, and broody variety.
At least with his height, he was easy to spot. Phil was over by the cake stall talking to Cherry, who was looking harried as she tried to stop little kiddies putting their fingers in the buttercream and nicking the smarties off the top of the cupcakes. “That’s fifty pence, please—no, fifty pence each. Thank you. Tom. Finally. I was beginning to worry you weren’t going to turn up.”
“Yeah, well if I’d known what bloody Amelia had me down for, I sodding well wouldn’t have.” I glared at Cherry so she’d know that yes, I did bloody well blame her for all this.
“What’s that?” Phil put in around a mouthful of cupcake. Typical. He’s always going on about me liking my food too much.
Cherry gave him a hard stare. “I hope you’ve paid for that.”
Phil looked a bit embarrassed and pulled out a handful of change.
“She only wants me to go on in that bloody arena and do tricks like a bloody performing seal, that’s what.”
“Well, I hope you’re going to clean your language up a bit when you go out there,” Cherry said with a sniff and a nod towards an elderly customer who was busy giving the fruitcake a critical squeeze and didn’t look in the least offended by my so-called profanity.
“I’m not going out there!”
