Family Baggage Page 3

  ‘Did Nina say Lara seemed upset? Different in any way?’

  ‘She said she was as calm as she always is. Focused was the word she used.’

  Austin was quiet for a moment. ‘It’s weird. Really weird,’ he finally said. ‘This isn’t about a man, is it? She hasn’t mentioned meeting anyone to you?’

  ‘No, she hasn’t.’ That wasn’t surprising. In the few times they had spoken on the phone since Lara had left for England they had barely talked about the weather, let alone their social lives. ‘What do you think I should do, Aust? Do I call the police? Go and look for her?’

  ‘What could you say to the police? That she’s left voluntarily? People do that all the time. The police will just laugh. And you can’t go looking for her, can you? Not with a tour group trailing behind you. You can still go ahead with the tour, can’t you, even if she’s not there?’

  ‘I think so. I mean, of course I can. I have to. They’re so excited, there’s no way I’d call it off.’

  ‘Where did you tell them Lara was tonight?’

  She knew he was thinking of another of their father’s rules. Never tell clients anything they don’t need to know. ‘I said she’d been unavoidably delayed. I’ll think of something for tomorrow. Sudden study commitments perhaps. They’ve already had one change of tour guide, I don’t want to unsettle them any more.’ Her mind was racing now. ‘And I’ll just have to try and answer their questions about Willoughby as best I can. Change the subject as quickly as I can.’

  ‘Change the subject? When the whole subject of the tour is Willoughby?’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said, hoping he couldn’t hear the uncertainty in her voice. ‘I’ll just have to bluff it.’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Willoughby himself? Isn’t the actor joining the tour too? He’s the one they’ll be asking questions of, not you, surely?’

  ‘Oh my God, the actor!’ Harriet laughed with relief. ‘Austin, I love you. I’d completely forgotten about him. Let me check he’s where he should be. Can I call you right back?’

  She quickly dialled their hotel in St Ives, two hundred miles down the north Cornwall coast. If all had gone to plan the actor was in his hotel room at this moment, waiting for their arrival tomorrow afternoon. Yes, the young receptionist reported, Mr Patrick Shawcross had arrived safely that evening. Yes, the welcome basket of fruit had been delivered to his room. He had asked not to be disturbed but if it was urgent …

  ‘No, no, that’s fine, I just wanted to check he was there. Thanks very much.’ She called Austin back and reported the good news.

  ‘There you are. That’ll take some of the pressure off you at least,’ Austin said. ‘Did you ever see any of the Willoughby programs? I’m not much help, I remember the theme tune after the news every Sunday night, but those slow motion shots of the actor always put me off.’

  ‘I’ve got the videos with me. I didn’t get the chance to watch them before I left.’

  ‘Can you have a quick look at them tonight? Fast-forward through a couple of them if you have to. If nothing else they might put you to sleep. And in the meantime, leave Lara to me. I’ll start making some phone calls. See if I can find out what’s going on.’

  ‘Are you sure? Have you got time?’

  ‘I did have a date with one of my adoring fans tonight, but she’ll just have to wait. Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen, as the saying goes.’

  ‘Austin, stop it,’ she said, automatically. It worried her how cavalier Austin was about women sometimes. He always said he was too young to settle down or that he travelled too much to be a good catch.

  ‘Relax, Harold,’ he said, slipping into his childhood nickname for her. ‘I respect my female fans. They adore me. It’s a win-win situation. Have you told James what’s happened, by the way?’

  ‘Not yet, I didn’t want to wake him. You’re the first person I’ve rung.’

  ‘I do have you well trained. No problem, I’ll call him in a little while. It’ll do him good to wake up early.’

  ‘You know he’s in hospital?’

  ‘I do. My basket of grapes must have gone missing in the post.’

  ‘He’s a nice man, Austin.’

  ‘He is. It’s not his fault he’s married to a she-devil. I’ll ring him and then we’ll get onto Lara, too, keep trying her mobile until we find out what’s happened. We’ll worry about her, you just worry about the tour group. Promise me.’

  ‘I promise. And thanks, Aust.’

  ‘Any time. And Harriet, I mean it, relax. It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. You know and I know James wouldn’t have let you within a hundred yards of one of his precious tours if he didn’t think you were up to it. He’s been trying to get you back on the road for months, hasn’t he?’

  ‘How did you know that?’ The last she knew, Austin had told Melissa he didn’t want to receive any updates or monthly reports about Turner Travel. He’d been extremely forceful about it. Something about Melissa sticking her overbearing, patronising, self-aggrandising reports somewhere the sun doesn’t shine, if Harriet’s memory was accurate.

  ‘I pay Glorious to spy for me.’ Glorious was his nickname for Gloria Hillman, Turner Travel’s long-time office manager and a close family friend. ‘Someone has to keep an eye on my inheritance. Now seriously, relax, little sister. Repeat after me: “I will be fine. I can handle this if I just take it step by step.” Better than handle it. You’ll do it really well.’

  Behind his joking tone, she knew he really was serious. Austin knew better than anyone how important this tour was to her. He was the one who’d come to her rescue nine months earlier after that last disastrous trip. She smiled into the phone. ‘You’re actually very nice underneath everything, aren’t you?’

  ‘Talented and handsome too. It’s a devastating combination.’

  He’d cheered her up, as always. Calmed her down too. And despite the light-hearted tone, his advice had been good. Just the matter-of-factness of going down to the reception desk to ask about the use of a video player had helped. The receptionist, hair tied back so tightly she nearly looked plastic, had hardly blinked at the request. A video viewing at this time of night? ‘No problem at all, madam. I’ll have the equipment delivered to your room. Would you like tea and sandwiches delivered while you work?’

  Harriet thanked her stars they were staying in a business-oriented airport hotel for their first night in England, and not a homely B&B. Within half an hour she had been set up, the stack of Willoughby tapes on the bed beside her. She also had a cup of tea in one hand, a remote control in the other, a round of sandwiches on a plate by her elbow and the tour itinerary on her lap. She forced herself to put the troubling thoughts about Lara to one side and pressed play, willing her brain to take in every detail of the program.

  The screen flickered into life to a soundtrack of faint music and the barking of a dog. A man appeared on screen, walking across a very green field. He looked to be in his early thirties, tall, his dark curly hair ruffled in the wind. He wore a duffle jacket over black jeans. His face was craggily good-looking, interesting rather than handsome, his eyes dark, shadowed. As he kept walking, the blue of the sea became visible behind him. The music grew louder, a cross between folk music and something orchestral. The shot widened to include a farmhouse, beyond it a jutting cliff, further still a lighthouse. Lettering appeared.

  PATRICK SHAWCROSS

  as

  Willoughby

  More barking filtered in through the music. The man stopped, turned. A black and white dog came running towards him. The two kept walking along a cliff path, a spectacular bay in the background, all soaring cliffs and blue water. The shot changed to an aerial view of a red post-office van making its way down narrow tree-lined roads. A montage of shots followed, as other cast members appeared on screen against a backdrop of harbours, old churches, farms and moorland. Harriet pointed the remote control at the television, pressing the fast-
forward button. There wasn’t time to watch the opening credits. What she really needed was Willoughby in pill form.

  She watched most of the first episode, pressing fast-forward again whenever the action slowed. The plot involved the arrival of Willoughby in the town of St Ives under mysterious circumstances, shots of several curious villagers watching him unpack his few belongings from a battered old Rover, and then a dramatic shot of him standing looking out over a cliff, talking to himself. It quickly moved on to the theft of some valuable paintings from a country-house hotel clinging to the hillside of a picturesque village nearby. The setting was magnificent, with spectacular views across the sea. Harriet remembered it was one of the first stops on their tour.

  She flicked through the itinerary on her lap and read the activity description James had written. ‘Let’s go walking in Willoughby’s footsteps in beautiful Lynton on the north Devon coast, better known to the true fan as Ecclesea! We’ll also visit the very hotel that played host to the action in several episodes, including “The Case of the Stolen Sketchbooks” and “The Case of the Mournful Model”. ’

  She leafed through the other notes James had given her, feeling like she was cramming for a ‘Trends in TV Light Entertainment’ exam. Willoughby was like a cross between the Agatha Christie Miss Marple series and All Creatures Great and Small, she decided. She’d already gathered that Willoughby – it was never explained if that was his first or last name – was a postman with a mysterious past, possibly involving a career with Scotland Yard and a nervous breakdown, now living on the north Cornwall coast, delivering mail to farms and villages and managing to solve crimes along the way.

  Among the press clippings James had given her she found a serious magazine article from several years previously, trying to explain the show’s continuing popularity in Australia. It had lasted for only two runs on the BBC, but in Australia it was repeated year after year, tucked cosily in its Sunday evening slot, after the news, alternating between reruns of Fawlty Towers and To the Manor Born. English migrants loved it, the magazine noted, and so did plenty of Australians not of English descent or origin, happy to be reassured by its safe, comforting messages.

  * * *

  ‘Emigrants look back at their homeland through increasingly rose-coloured glasses. For some, the sentimental outlook is supplied by music. For others, TV programs. Willoughby has managed to combine the two with its snapshot or capsule form of English life.

  All the elements are there – the mysterious man with a past and a handy penchant for sleuthing, the job as postman a convenient cover, allowing him to travel the length and breadth of south-west England. His co-stars, a simple but wise farmer, a member of the upper class and the ordinary postmasters and mistresses at surrounding rural post offices, supply additional colour.

  The glorious Cornish country-side plays a role too, with scenes of fishing villages, wild coastline and chocolate-box farms featuring prominently. Even a dog – so beloved in English society – has a part to play.

  The plots might be predictable, the crimes old-fashioned, the acting uneven, but it somehow feeds right into the heart of a nostalgic viewing population.’

  * * *

  The whole tour had actually been sparked by another magazine article, Harriet remembered. They had all been at their desks late one morning when Mrs Lamerton swept in. Mrs Lamerton did a lot of sweeping in to shops in Merryn Bay. Settling herself in the waiting area until Melissa was free to take her to lunch, she had started leafing through the pile of magazines. On the top was a collection of old English magazines that Lara had found in a junk shop. She’d added them to the pile for novelty value.

  Harriet had been working at her computer, updating the monthly newsletter they sent out to each of their clients. The job had been given to her when it became clear she wouldn’t be able to go back on the road again for a while. Perhaps Melissa had been trying to put it to her nicely, but it had come out all wrong. ‘We’re hoping it’s a nice simple job for you, Harriet. But if it gets too stressful at any stage, if you feel that little problem of yours coming on, you just let me know and we’ll put you onto something else in a whisker.’

  ‘Oh good heavens!’

  They’d all turned at the gasp from Mrs Lamerton in the waiting area.

  She was waving one of the English magazines at them. ‘Where did you get this from? I used to get this magazine every single week. In fact, I remember this very issue. I read everything about Willoughby I could get my hands on.’

  Mrs Lamerton sighed as Lara and James came over to her. ‘We were still living in England when they showed the first episode. I’ll never forget it. It was the night we decided to emigrate. We were so thrilled when we arrived here to see it on Australian TV too. It’s still my favourite program, you know.’

  Lara had looked at the magazine article while Mrs Lamerton gave James a detailed commentary, explaining that the series was set in fictional villages along the north Cornwall coast but in reality had used different aspects of a number of real towns and locations in Devon and Cornwall: the cobbled streets and long beaches of St Ives; the wild Bodmin Moor scenery; the village green of Widecombe-in-the-Moor; the harbour at Port Isaac; cliffside country hotels in Lynton. The magazine had full-colour photos and poetic descriptions of each setting.

  ‘And would all these places still be there?’ Lara asked, glancing up from the magazine.

  Mrs Lamerton made a tchy sound. ‘They’ve stood the test of time for hundreds of years, Lara. Of course they’d still be there. You have to remember, Australia hadn’t even been discovered when these places were celebrating their sesquicentenaries.’

  Harriet tried not to smile. Mrs Lamerton always had the unfortunate habit of talking about Australia as if it were a misbehaving toddler.

  ‘I’m ashamed to say I’ve never been to Cornwall,’ Mrs Lamerton continued. ‘It’s one of the few parts of England Timothy and I didn’t visit.’ Timothy was her late husband. He had died ten years previously, three months after he and Mrs Lamerton had retired to Merryn Bay. He had been something in the army, or the navy, no one had ever found out exactly what. It was often hard to get a word in around Mrs Lamerton. ‘Though of course I feel I know it like the back of my hand from watching Willoughby. Such a beautiful place. And of course having a handsome young man like Willoughby stride through it gave it extra appeal too.’ She gave a surprisingly girlish giggle.

  Nothing was said at the time, but over the next few days Harriet noticed Lara looking up English websites. A guide to Devon and Cornwall appeared on her desk. So did photocopies of the Willoughby magazine article. She revealed it all at the next planning meeting, standing up to make her presentation. Her uniform was so crisp it could have been freshly ironed, her shoulder-length blonde hair shining, her make-up flawless. Across the table Harriet wished she’d thought to redo her lipstick before the meeting, too. She bit her lips so much while she was working her lipstick was usually eaten off before morning tea.

  It was a very impressive presentation. Lara had put together a full itinerary for a Willoughby tour of Devon and Cornwall, taking in all the locations from the TV series. She’d discovered that there were dozens of Willoughby fans in the Merryn Bay area. She’d put the word around and already had firm interest from eight people. She knew there would be no problem getting that up to twelve. She’d done costings, timetables and market research. It was extremely viable.

  ‘Lara, you are a gem,’ Melissa said, beaming. ‘I couldn’t have done it better myself. Absolutely full steam ahead with it, I say. Well done. Now Harriet, what about you? Any ideas for new tours?’

  Harriet stammered an answer. ‘No, I’m sorry, nothing concrete yet.’ She’d felt unable to think about a shopping trip to Melbourne at that time, let alone plan an international tour.

  ‘No? Never mind.’ Melissa looked like she did mind. ‘But you’re happy enough with your workload? Not too much for you?’

  ‘It’s fine, thanks,’ Harriet said as brightly as s
he could. It wasn’t fine. It was hard and scary and suffocating, all at once. She sometimes felt that she had no right to still have a job there, that all the others were carrying her. Lara especially. It was like they were on a seesaw, she realised. Lara flying high, Harriet falling lower and lower.

  Over the next few months, Lara methodically set about organising the Willoughby tour. The clincher had been the discovery that Patrick Shawcross, the English actor who had played Willoughby, was alive and well and living in Boston. It had taken Lara some time to discover the fact, sending emails and faxes to the ABC in Sydney, the BBC in London and to actors’ agencies in the UK before she was given a contact number for a large American agency in New York. She’d sent two emails without reply and finally decided to phone them, coming in early one morning to make the call.

  Lara had told the story over morning tea, twisting her blonde hair as she spoke, her habit when she was amused about something. ‘I said I was hoping to speak to someone about one of their clients, a Mr Patrick Shawcross. And the receptionist said, “I’m sorry, his name again? Parma Shorkle, did you say?” ’ Lara was laughing now. ‘I ended up spelling it three times. I had to tell her that he’d starred in a program on English TV called Willoughby. I heard a click of keys again and then she said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t represent anyone called Willoughby, either.” ’

  She had been passed from person to person until she had found someone who thought she knew who he was.

  ‘I think she was on work experience from their French office. “You want him to do what? Why?” ’ Lara had explained they had seen the article about Willoughby in the magazine and wanted to base a tour around it. ‘ “When? And you would pay his expenses? And a fee?” ’ Lara did an excellent impersonation of a French accent. ‘It was surprisingly reasonable. It sounds like he doesn’t do much work with them any more so she was probably quoting from the last job he did. But I think we have him. I faxed over the magazine article to her and the dates we’d need him in Cornwall, and she said she’d come back to me as soon as she’d been in touch with him. If he says yes, I send all the flight details and a fee to her, they take their commission and we have our tour.’