NEW BOOK
[Hardback August 2009 - Paperback January 2010]
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There were five things Cleo Moon definitely hadn't planned on doing before she reached 35:
1) Being divorced
2) Being replaced by a much-older model
3) Moving out of her Winterbrook Tudorbethan semi
4) Moving into the Berkshire hamlet of Lover's Knot
5) Working for the haughtocratic Mimi Pashley Royle
These were devastating events, even for a resourceful girl like Cleo, but add
6) Living in a mobile home on a caravan park
7) Having a 16 year old New Best Friend
8) Being surrounded by some of the oddest people she'd ever met
9) Accidentally discovering that brewing the fruits and berries in Lover's Spinney
produced the most surprising results, and then
10) Discovering that adding water from Lover's Cascade created Magical Moonshine
and her once-mundane life was turned upside down.
And as if this wasn't enough, add meeting super-sexy, drop-dead-gorgeous, achingly-upper-class and complete-waste-of-space Dylan Maguire…
As life-changes went, Cleo felt she'd had her fair share of disruptions, but by the time she'd uncorked her first bottle of home-brewed Moonshine, nothing in Lover's Knot would ever be the same again…
Read an extract:
Chapter One
‘…and – oh, look, sorry but before we go any further, I’m really going to have to ask about your name. Were your parents Egyptologists?’
‘Jazz fans,’ Cleo explained for the zillionth time in her 35 years. ‘You know? Cleo Laine…?’
‘Ah, yes. Really? How very – um – original,’ Mimi Pashley-Royle didn’t quite manage to disguise her amusement. ‘Still, look on the bright side. If you’d been a boy they’d have probably called you Acker.’
Cleo sighed.
Mimi Pashley-Royle, her slender shoulders still twitching, composed herself by twiddling an as-yet unused gold fountain pen between expertly-manicured fingernails and peering down at a piece of paper resting on the vellum-bound desk diary in front of her.
Cleo noticed for the first time that the diary pages were blank. All Cleo’s details were scribbled on the single sheet of paper. Like the fountain pen, Cleo assumed the diary was probably just a prop for this strangest of job interviews.
As soon as her shoulders had subsided, Mimi took a deep breath and looked up from the diary. ‘Sorry, Cleo, I’m forgetting my manners. That was extremely impolite of me. Mortimer, my husband, is always telling me there’s a very fine line between my being curious and appearing downright rude, and is constantly chiding me to think before I speak.’
Cleo, suddenly warming towards the unknown Mortimer Pashley-Royle, simply smiled, reminding herself of just how desperately she needed this job. ‘It’s okay. I’m not offended. I’m used to people finding my name unusual.’
‘That’s very gracious of you, dear. You’re certainly far better mannered than I am. But, yes, it is an unusual name…’ Mimi Pashley-Royle peered down again at the piece of paper in front of her. ‘Cleo - um – Moon?’
‘Moon is my maiden name,’ Cleo said. ‘I’ve reverted to it since my divorce.’
‘Really? Cleo Moon…’ Mimi Pashley-Royle imbued the words with plum-rich vowels. ‘It sounds like a new breed of clematis… Cleo Moon… You must have gone through hell at school. In my experience, children can be so cruel – there must have been endless jokes about mooning and moon-face and being a Moony and…’
‘Yes, all of those,’ Cleo admitted. ‘And plenty more. But I’m still more than happy to be a new Moon again.’
Mimi chuckled softly, then leaned forward like an inquisitive bird, clearly forgetting Mortimer’s dire warnings. ‘What was your married surname, then? Surely it must have been an improvement on Moon?’
‘Sneezum.’
‘Nooo!’ Mimi Pashley-Royle screamed with laughter. ‘Oh, no - sorry… but no – surely not?’
‘Yes, sadly. Dave’s – my ex’s – family originally came from Norfolk. It’s quite a common name there.’
‘Goodness me,’ Mimi attempted to regain some self-control. ‘How appalling for you. I mean – er - I can quite see why you chose to become a Moon again – lord above… Oh, dear… Sorry – sorry, we seem to have digressed. Where were we?’
Cleo, pretty sure this was a hypothetical question, said nothing. She was just glad they’d left the name stuff behind. If this hadn’t been a job interview, and if she hadn’t been absolutely desperate for employment, and if she hadn’t been properly brought up, she may well have joined in the merriment by pointing out that “Mimi” wasn’t exactly run-of-the-mill. Well, not in rural Berkshire. Not unless you were a poodle.
She shifted a little in her sumptuously-upholstered brocade chair and, as she had ever since the interview started, tried to avoid looking at her reflection in the huge ornate gilt mirror on the far wall in case the desperation showed.
She had to remember to relax; to look calm and nonchalant. To appear as if this job wasn’t important in the slightest. She was sure that if the autocratic and imperious Mimi got wind of just how important this PA appointment was to her, she’d make her life hell.
Damn! Now she’d looked in the mirror.
It was slightly disconcerting to see her own curvy self, with her big brown eyes, billowing mass of dark hair and chain-store clothes, and the two decades older, slim, blonde, elegantly designer-dressed Mimi, reflected together in the looking glass, with this gorgeous drawing room spilling out around them.
Chalk and cheese, Cleo thought. Straight from central casting. Just as it should be in this situation. The Lady of the Manor bestowing largesse on a peasant.
‘Where had we got to?’ Mimi Pashley-Royle pursed her very full lips and beamed again. ‘Before I was swept away at a tangent by your delicious name? Ah, yes, the end-tying. So, is there anything you’d like to ask me?’
Cleo shook her head and smiled her best interviewee-smile at her achingly glamorous interrogator. ‘No, I don’t think so. I think you’ve covered absolutely everything I could possibly want to know about the position, thank you.’
Nicely done, Cleo thought. Polite, slightly distant, not over-keen. She really mustn’t appear over-keen. Nothing was more off-putting than someone absolutely panting to be thrown a life-line. Not to mention clearly asking to be a door-mat.
‘Good,’ Mimi Pashley-Royle heaved a sigh of relief. ‘I do so hate interviewing for staff. So, despite my obvious lack of manners, do you think you could bear to work for me? Will you take the job?’
‘What?’ Cleo blinked, just managing not to grin madly and leap up and kiss the regal Mimi on her surgically-enhanced cheek. ‘You’re offering it to me? Now? Just like that?’
‘Well, yes,’ Mimi raised her eyebrows as far as the Botox would allow. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? I need a PA like yesterday as the children say. You were the only applicant, you’re local, you haven’t got any family dependents to cause a hindrance, you’re newly single, you’re unemployed, and I sense you’re desperate.’
Cleo flinched. Bugger. She hadn’t managed to disguise the neediness. And the litany of awfulness was all true, but maybe it could have been dressed up just a little to soften the blow. Not, she reckoned, that Mimi was the sort of woman to soften blows. And, she thought ruefully, PA was so far off the mark that Mimi Pashley-Royle should be sued under the Trades Descriptions Act.
Personal Assistant? With the list of tasks Mimi had already listed, Drudge and Dogsbody would better fit the bill. Ooh no, Cleo shook her head. Don’t think about bills… Bills were piling up, money wasn’t.
What choice did she have?
Play it cool, she told herself. Be sweetly grateful but not too ecstatic. Keep the upper hand.
‘Well, yes, thank you. It sounds – um – fascinating, and I’m very interested, of course, but it’s not really the sort of job I’m used to, and I do have other offers to consider.’
‘Really?’ Mimi suddenly looked very put-out. ‘Well, of course I’m aware that it might be considered a step-down from your previous positions, but if you feel unable to accept straight away, then I’d better look elsewhere.’
Nooo! Cleo squeaked inside. Nooo – she couldn’t foul it up now. There was playing it cool and there was behaving like a prat. And she might just have done the latter. Sod it…
She smiled a bit more brightly. ‘Well, of course, what I meant was that I’ve had other interviews for more – er – senior posts but I haven’t heard the outcome of those yet.’
She dared to glance across the room at her reflection. She was sure her nose would now be Pinocchio length.
Mimi shrugged. ‘Well, there I feel I have the advantage over the others. I’m offering you this job now. However, if you want to wait and risk seeing if you can find something you’d prefer more, then we’d better say goodbye and – ‘
‘No – sorry, I mean, yes, thank you, then. I’d love to accept the post.’ Cleo did some inward deep-breathing exercises to stop the excitement showing, outwardly smiling across the expanse of polished mahogany desk. ‘But as I’m new to this sort of work, maybe we could arrange some sort of trial period?’
‘I’m not entirely sure that you’re the one who should be dictating terms,’ Mimi said frostily. ‘Goodness me, there are dozens of people without work through not fault of their own, who’d be ecstatic to be offered this opportunity.’
Sensing the job-offer slipping away again, Cleo gritted her teeth and decided that being a door-mat was infinitely preferable to being unemployed. ‘Sorry, yes of course. I’ll fit in with whatever you think best. And I’ll – er – let the other places know that I’m no longer seeking work. But what about my references? And police checks? After all, I could be anybody.’
Mimi Pashley-Royle flapped her long and expensively be-jewelled fingers. ‘Oh, yes, well of course, there will be the usual boring personnel business minutiae to attend to, but Mortimer, my husband, always says I’m a good judge of character. You look decent enough to me – and anyway, if you don’t suit I can always sack you, can’t I?’
Thanks a bunch, Cleo thought. Thirty seconds into being employed again and there was already talk of dismissal. She squeezed out another smile. Honestly, much more of this inane beaming and her face would set in a permanent gurn.
Mimi closed the untouched diary and laid aside the unused fountain pen. ‘So, now we’re both happy, can you start tomorrow? And yes, on a temporary basis if you prefer, to see if you’re happy with such a menial post and until such time as I’ve delved into your murky past.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Merely a figure of speech, dear,’ Mimi Pashley-Royle stood up, clearly indicating that the interview was at an end, and stalked on slender heels across the acres of Aubusson towards the door. Then she paused and looked quizzically back Cleo. ‘Or have you actually got one?’
Cleo, scrambling to her feet, shook her head. ‘Not really. Not at all, in fact. My entire life has been boringly virtuous to be honest. Even the divorce wasn’t my fault.’
‘Well you would say that wouldn’t you?’ Mimi beamed across the glorious panelled room. ‘But in my experience it takes two to – ‘
‘Tango?’
‘Good lord no. I despise clichés. Sod up a marriage I was going to say,’ Mimi shrugged her catwalk-thin shoulders. ‘And I should know. Right, then Cleo. Let’s see how it goes. You toddle off back to your encampment now, I’ll go and disembowel the florist for sending bloody crysanths instead of the Autumnal Tumble I’d ordered, and we’ll meet here again at 9 tomorrow morning.’
Cleo nodded, assuming that from 9 tomorrow morning, as Mimi’s PA, disembowelling florists would be just one of her many new and exciting tasks.
After another brief beaming session, and an even briefer handshake, Cleo and her new employer parted company in a class-collision of man-made fibres and cashmere.
* * *
Outside Lovelady Hall, Cleo exhaled in the mild golden September afternoon. Well, that was that then. It had gone quite well considering, and at least she’d managed to convince Mimi that this job wasn’t the be all and end all. Despite it coming very close to disaster, that was another hurdle – er – hurdled.
Since Dave had announced that he wanted a quickie divorce, she’d hurdled quite a few obstacles this year: leaving her ten year marriage and becoming rapidly single again; leaving her smart – if boringly cloned – development semi in Winterbrook; leaving her last job – well, as Dave’s secretary it would have been impossible to stay happily typing up his software orders in the spare bedroom while snarling “drop dead you two-timing, double-crossing bastard”; leaving behind everything and everyone that she knew, and at the tender age of 35, moving a few miles across Berkshire to start a new life.
In a new home.
In the hamlet of Lovers Knot.
And now, Cleo looked back cheerfully at the glorious mellow manor house with its swathe of vivid Virginia creeper, sitting in the obligatory sea of manicured lawns, spotless gravel drives, and just-turning ochre and russet shrubbery, she’d got a new job too.
Mimi Pashley-Royle was no doubt going to be a vixen to work for. But surely, after the upheavals of the past few months, Cleo could cope with that, couldn’t she? And at least she’d be earning her own money again. Which meant that the dwindling amount in her bank account might start to move in a more positive direction.
Feeling that life might just be on the up, Cleo clenched her fists in delight and did a little exultant dance of jubilation on the immaculate gravel.
‘Yessssss!’
Just a fraction too late, she noticed Mimi Pashley-Royle watching her and laughing from one of Lovelady Hall’s tall leaded windows.
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