gave him an elbow in the side for good measure and heard a muffled oomph from the face-down woolly hat. A not entirely unpleasant waft of pine soap and musky aftershave drifted past. Were shoplifters allowed to smell this appealing? Shouldn’t they smell of stale alcohol and used ten-pound notes?
It was only as they lay together in a wriggling heap, that it occurred to Maisie he might be armed – carrying a knife or even a gun. But within a microsecond of her piercing yells, the back door of the barn was flung open, a bitter February wind slicing through the air, and several people burst in, including a heavily panting Johnny. His hands fell to his mustard, corduroy-covered knees as he took in the tangled bodies before him.
Her squirming quarry gave up his futile struggles and lifted his head to face the assembled crowd, standing in a concerned semicircle looking down at the pair of them.
‘Theodore, dah-ling.’ Johnny sounded most puzzled. ‘What on earth are you doing to the new girl?’
Theodore? As in Johnny’s partner? Hashtag Endofpromisingcareer. Maisie rolled off the man and onto her bottom.
‘She hit me! Really hard,’ Theodore said, as he lifted his head from the floor, the knitted hat now slipped down half over one eye. He put a hand to his head and tugged it back, enabling him to throw Maisie a dirty look. Now she thought about it, he looked vaguely familiar …
‘I … I thought he was stealing from us,’ she blustered.
‘Oh, bless you and your misguided company loyalty,’ Johnny said, offering his arm to Maisie, who heaved herself from the floor and brushed down her dusty knees.
‘This is Maisie?’ Theodore asked, looking at Johnny and waving a vague hand in her direction. ‘The one you were interviewing when I was on my way to the studios last month? You said you’d employed an extra pair of hands, not a bloody guard dog.’
Could this man be the clean-shaven figure who had caught her attention a couple of weeks ago? This man was more stubble than skin. No wonder she hadn’t made the connection.
‘This is indeed she.’ Johnny put out the same burgundy velvet arm to help Theodore to his feet.
‘She whacked me really hard in the guts,’ Theodore grumbled, rubbing his left side.
‘Maisie was multi-tasking, dah-ling – photographer, marketing whiz and guard dog.’
‘I. Am. So. Sorry,’ she said. ‘I honestly didn’t know who you were.’
‘Don’t sweat it,’ Theodore sighed. Having recovered from the assault he was beginning to see the funny side. He gave a lopsided smile and a tip of the head. ‘Even Johnny didn’t know I was coming back in to work today.’
‘You work here?’ Maisie couldn’t stop her mouth from falling open.
Theodore looked over to Johnny. ‘You didn’t tell her about me? Bloody hell, mate. I’m only the most important person in the whole company. I’m the media superstar. I’m the draw.’ He said all this is a most un-superstar way, Maisie noticed. And yet … there was something beguiling about this untidy, mismatched young man. Something that drew you in. Was it the moss-green eyes, or that enchanting lopsided smile? He tugged the hat from his head and an indefinable mass of springy, fair, afro-textured hair sprung up like a very small, very thick sheepskin rug.
Or perhaps it was the extraordinary hair.
Not sure whether he was exaggerating for her benefit, or whether he truly was in that much pain, every time Maisie came across Theo (it transpired only Johnny used his full name) for the remainder of the day, he limped like someone with a shoe full of acorns. Mind you, he’d really thudded into that concrete …
Arthur was on clouds nine, ten and eleven, and unable to conceal his Cheshire-cat grin.
‘I didn’t think he was coming back until tomorrow so I was really made up when he knocked on my door this morning and asked if I wanted a lift to work. We live in the same part of town, you know? And he’s always looked out for me, even before this job came up. Turned out they were absolutely desperate for someone with my skills, even though I thought I was on the proverbial scrapheap. Wonderful really, that I’m still useful to someone, especially as I often say to our Pam that I passed my prime many moons ago. Naturally, I said yes to the lift because I’ve really missed him. He’s such a good boss …’
‘Boss?’ interrupted Maisie, who was half-listening, as she tapped away on the keyboard at her now thoroughly organised and totally business-like desk. Unlike Johnny, who still spent five minutes looking for his ringing phone under all the papers, if she needed a spare USB cable or an orange highlighter, she could lay her hands on both in seconds.
She was designing an ‘About Us’ section for the website – especially as she now needed to add another member of staff. Why the original website hadn’t included any details about the employees was beyond her. Her experience taught her it was people and animals that got the most attention in any marketing campaign. And she was beginning to realise it was the people who made Gildersleeve’s special so they should be actively promoted along with all its other attractions.
‘Well, yes. He’s like a sort of manager, I suppose. Deals with all the day-to-day stuff. Didn’t you know?’
No she jolly well didn’t – she hadn’t even known he was an employee until that morning. Johnny was drip-feeding important information about her job – information that could have saved her considerable embarrassment and her manager from unprovoked grievous bodily harm.
Arthur barely paused, not needing any verbal responses from his audience. ‘Everything will be rather more ship-shape now he’s back. Don’t get me wrong, Johnny’s a wonder, but we were all so surprised that the Wot a Lot! crew wanted Theo – particularly Johnny, who between you and me rather fancied himself as a charismatic, less orange, David Dickinson figure. But they insisted on our Theo – and why wouldn’t you? They said he had great visual appeal and the researcher I spoke to thought he’d pull in a younger audience, particularly the females.’
‘But isn’t he a bit erm … untidy for television? Don’t they want experts in suits with clipped accents and neatly combed hair?’
‘Nonsense. Look at them popular characters on the telly, like Columbo?’ The reference meant nothing to Maisie. ‘The public loves quirky.’
‘Johnny’s quirky. Theo’s a bit … scruffy.’ And that was her being polite. She knew it was wrong to stereotype but the majority of gay men she’d come across had been immaculately turned out. Theo’s jeans weren’t distressed, they were positively traumatised, and the hand-knitted jumper he was sporting was so misshapen, she couldn’t be sure which member of the animal kingdom it had been knitted for – possibly a rhinoceros. No wonder she’d mistaken him for a ne’er-do-well, loitering around the back of a dimly lit saleroom.
‘To my way of thinking, Johnny is a caricature of himself,’ Arthur said. ‘And twiddly moustached, eccentric antiques experts are ten a penny. Handsome, young, wiry-haired men full of charm sporting a pair of sparkly eyes – now that’s going to get the pulses of the female audience racing.’
And possibly about five
