‘How’s the dog?’ I ask, putting on my seatbelt.
‘I’m sorry to say . . .’ begins Danny, in sombre tones.
‘Oh God, don’t tell me it’s dead.’
‘No,’ he replies, holding out the ball of fur. ‘It’s not dead, but . . . it ain’t no dog.’
I take the trembling, cashmere-soft bundle from him and arrange it on my lap for inspection. He’s right. It’s not a dog, it’s a rabbit. A massive, floppy-eared bunny.
‘Right,’ I say, as its back legs scrabble painfully against my thighs. ‘My mistake.’
‘Seems a bit much to smash someone’s car in for a rabbit.’
I was thinking along those lines myself, but I’m damned if I’ll admit it. ‘That’s a very prejudiced view. Anyway, who the hell leaves a rabbit in a car?’
‘Maybe they thought it would get shot in the field.’
Who knows why people do what they do. The fact is, I’ve destroyed a car to save Bigwig here, and I’ll just have to own it.
‘Very well,’ I say. ‘Drive on.’
21
Despite Maz’s love of animals, we were never allowed a pet. My mother professed herself allergic to cats, and said she’d once been bitten by an Irish terrier, leaving her with a lifelong fear of dogs and Ireland, but the truth was that neither beast would have been conducive to her quest for an immaculate house. My sister’s alpacas could be viewed as a massive metaphorical finger to Rose – free to embrace four-legged friends, Maz chose the biggest, smelliest ones she could find. Perhaps Grizelda is my subtler, more refined rebellion. And now I have abducted a rabbit.
Inspired by our encounter, Danny launches into a tirade against a show called Good Dog, Bad Dog, which is in fact a series I made a while ago which took two contrasting examples of the same breed and . . . contrasted them. I’m actually quite proud of that show because we made it with all sorts of Covid regulations in place, and, after shivering my arse off in bleak parks for six weeks, I managed to avoid hypothermia. It seems my driver objects to us having paired a ‘good’ Golden Retriever with a ‘bad’ yellow Labrador – technically not the same pedigree, which made a mockery of the format and disappointed Danny hugely. I stroke Bigwig’s butter-soft spine and wonder if he is a good bunny or a bad one.
David’s estate is looking particularly exquisite as my Mercedes rolls along its lengthy cypress-lined driveway shortly after 3 p.m. The vines undulate across the Somerset slopes in pleasingly uniform rows, and the elegant Georgian manor house ahead is burnished amber in the afternoon sunshine. In the show Good Vineyard, Bad Vineyard, this would definitely be the former. It really will make a lovely setting for a series about shitfaced millennials. As we pull up outside, I can hear the crunch of gravel, as if we’ve arrived at Downton for a murder mystery weekend.
‘Right,’ I say to Danny. ‘I’ll only be half an hour or so – can you wait here?’
‘What about Flopsy?’ He jerks his thumb at my new pet, who is sprawled on the leather seat, his back legs sticking out like one of those animal-hide rugs.
‘Well, unless he wants a wine tour he’ll have to stay here.’
‘I can’t have him hopping everywhere.’
‘He’s not hopping, he’s flopping – look at him.’
The rabbit sleepily rolls an eye.
Danny sulks. ‘What if he makes a mess?’
‘Charge it to Mr Chapel’s account.’ I get out of the car and pat the roof. ‘Thank you, Branson, that will be all.’
Pushing the doorbell, I ready myself to play hardball. Old Clover would be quaking at the prospect of rescuing a million-pound show, but she was a wet blanket, and New Clover is made of sterner stuff. Like weak beer versus hard liquor. Cheap plonk versus finest Cristal.
The housekeeper answers the door, and I manage to refrain from curtsying and asking if the master be in. She shows me to the drawing room, which I’ve seen before, but am happy to see again, as I like ogling how the other half lives. It has parquet floors and heavy drapes, several camelback sofas and numerous oils on the eggshell-blue walls. It’s very tasteful, but I couldn’t live here. How would you settle down to a night of Netflix and salted caramel Lindors in a room like this? It’s more the kind of room where you sit bolt upright reading Keats. I wonder if they’ve got a secret lounge where you can loll and fart and leave remote controls lying about.
The door flies open and my series producer, Caroline, barrels in.
‘Thank God you’re here,’ she pants. ‘It’s all gone to shit.’
Caroline is thirty-two, with a blunt-cut fringe and an attitude. She was great in her interview – frank and friendly, with just the right balance of go-getting and submitting. You want someone driven but not too aggressive, who can give orders but also take them. Once she’d got the job though, it turned out Caroline didn’t really like the submitting/taking orders bit. She frequently goes rogue and does it her own way, blaming underlings when anything goes wrong. Also, I’ve noticed she’s only nice to people above her in the pecking order, and despite the fact that I clearly outrank her, somewhere along the line she decided she doesn’t need to be nice to me – probably as a result of all the bagels I bought her. The further we got into pre-production, the more her manner edged towards truculent, pushing back on my decisions or ignoring them entirely. Well, Princess Caroline’s about to get her comeuppance.
‘David’s thrown his toys out the pram,’ she begins. ‘You need to get him back on board, and also tell the casting team to stop giving me all these character profiles because they’re doing my head in. Then you need to—’
She falters as I hold up a hand. ‘Let’s not talk about what I need to do, Caroline. Let’s talk about what you need to do, which is stop addressing me like I’m your servant. The casting APs are sending you profiles because that’s their job, and it’s your job to stay on top of it, not come bleating to me every time you’re required to lift a finger.’
For a second she gapes at me, then collects herself. ‘I . . . I . . . didn’t mean to . . . It’s just been very stressful out here, trying to organize everything.’
I blink conspicuously. ‘Caroline, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you an SP? It stands for series . . . producer. Isn’t organizing everything . . . your thing? Otherwise, you’re in the wrong career, and should change tack pronto. Maybe you’d be more suited as a hand model or a mattress-tester or something.’
My series producer’s neck is now bright red, and she looks as if she’s struggling to speak. ‘I’m sorry if I . . . I’m doing my best.’
‘That’s the trouble: I don’t think you are. I think you’re leaning very heavily on the team, making them do all the hard work, while you swan around issuing orders. I heard you last week having a go at Flora because she hadn’t sent the latest treatment to the channel commissioner, but that was supposed to come from you, wasn’t it?’
Her eyes fill with tears. ‘I’m sorry about that. I’m having a difficult time at the moment. My boyfriend—’
‘I’m afraid I don’t want to hear about how your boyfriend made you be rude to a colleague. We all have our personal issues, but we don’t have to bring them into the office.’ No, I think – when we have personal issues, we make sure we’re nowhere near the office. ‘Now, run along, and see if you can’t be a bit nicer to everyone on less money than you. I’m going to talk to David.’
Flushed and teary, Caroline scuttles off, while I take a turn about the room to inspect the portraits. Frederick Lyon-James looks like he’s half man, half pig. Arthur Lyon-James definitely had the pox. Geraldine Lyon was clearly a mad old battle-axe, and on closer inspection is wearing a locket with what looks like her own face on it. Saluting her, I move on. Charles Rupert Lyon is surrounded by his own kills, pheasant and partridge draped all around him. I wonder if I had a portrait done, what I would be surrounded by? Washing, probably. A fully loaded Lakeland air dryer.
‘Clover, how good to see you.’
The latest in the Lyon-James line enters, giving me a neat little bow. He really is quite dashing, in a silver fox kind of way, though I guess his family are fox-killing types. So, more of a distinguished deerhound – gentle, polite, dignified . . . but destructive if not treated in the right manner.
‘David, thank you so much for sparing the time.’
