Clem took a tray with tea and porridge to Nana's bedroom, while Dair was plating the rest of their breakfast.
'Plating' was not an adequate description of what Billie was observing here, by the way. Before going upstairs, Clem swiped on her phone; and some jolly tune poured out of the speakers on the counter.
"Encanto!" the girls cheered.
The tune was Latin American, and probably from a cartoon, considering the simplistic lyrics containing an overly descriptive expository piece about someone named Bruno. Billie could see how the song could be quite an earworm. The girls were singing - or mouthing - along, and doing some sort of coordinated shoulder shimmies.
And then Billie glanced up and saw the man dance, a flipper in his right hand, one pan after the other in his left. The food - mini pancakes, eggs, bangers, golden mouth-watering circles of boxty, perfectly grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, and peppers - rained onto the five plates in front of him. Billie froze, with a teabag dangling in her hand over a mug on the island. A bouncier tune kicked in; the lyrics were in a Hispanic language, something about Colombia; and Billie watched Dair, as her Aunt Hazel tended to put it, throw shapes, while still successfully attending to their brekkie.
"Go, Uncle Fredo!" one of the gingers cried out.
One of the older twins jumped off the stool. Billie still had trouble telling them apart, but that was probably Imogen. She was the livelier one. Her twin sister, Freddy, spoke little. The gingers - Lyn and Olly - were two years younger, around four; and did everything in unison. Watching them felt like seeing double. They also tended to throw each other silent looks, as if leading some sort of a private telepathic conversation; while the older duo didn't seem to have much in common except of their looks.
Dair pushed the skillet back onto the stove; the turner followed; and the girl and the man started 'cutting a rug,' in the same Aunt's vernacular. One would think someone so hench would be stiff and awkward - and yet here was Dair, graceful and jaunty like Waldeck's Ku-Ma!
"Dad does it a lot," the other dark-haired twin said in a resigned tone. "You get used to it."
Billie wasn't sure it was possible to get used to the view of someone that Brobdingnagian slightly swaying his hips, his torso rocking in fluid smooth movements, his steps light.
"Oh I forgot how good you are!" Clem's voice came from the stairs. "Imogen, make sure that Uncle Federico eats before everything goes cold. Nana says thank you for the breakfast, by the way. She's going to stay upstairs. Apparently, she's binging Will's new book."
"No wonder! It's ace!" Billie blurted out.
Four pairs of eyes fixed on her. Billie flushed.
"Well, I mean, he is amazing, isn't he?" she muttered. "I'm not much for military fiction, but you simply can't put it down! He's brilliant! It's like you dive in and you have to hold your breath until he lets you go. He's so intense, and you just have to give up control and let him carry you through it!"
The music changed, but no one was moving.
And then Clem snickered. "You do mean his writing, not Will himself, right?"
"Of course!" Billie cried out, taken aback. "I have no opinion on Mr. Holyoake as a person. I mean, he's clearly a wonderful human being, but– but–"
Billie dropped her eyes to her plate.
"It's OK if you have a bit of a crush on him," Clem sing-songed. "We all do."
"I just love his writing!" Billie protested, and Clem emitted a rather unconvinced 'uh-huh.'
"C-caffè?" Dair asked near Billie's ear, and she jumped up.
"Yes, please," she mumbled.
"Oh I forgot to mention, Nana said that your Aunts know you're here and safe," Clem said and mannerly placed a forkful of eggs in her mouth.
Billie suddenly didn't feel at all hungry.
"Apparently she'd rang them up last night," the writer added, "and said you'd be staying over, just like all those years ago when you'd sneaked into the house looking for Federico."
Billie's fork slipped out of her weakened fingers and landed on the table, splashing her with whatever delicious sauce Dair had dressed the bangers in. Her ears were burning so much that she considered asking for a bag of some frozen vegetables, some of those blueberries that Dair had added in the pancakes, perhaps. Billie swallowed a bite of said scrumptious pancake so hard as if it was a whole avocado stone.
"Wh-what's that?" the man asked; and Billie felt his gaze on the side of her face. "W-was it after I–"
"I wasn't looking for you!" Billie hollered, addressing the juicy slice of tomato on her plate. "I sneaked in because I wanted to see the books! Because they were writers, Pat and Teddy Holyoakes; and May Holyoake was a famous translator from Japanese! And I'd heard rumours about their library! It was months after you'd been to Fleckney - and I was not looking for you!"
She peeked and saw him study her intently. The girls were turning left and right as if at Wimbledon.
"They're in the Duck Pond now," Clem deadpanned, and Billie whipped her face towards the writer.
"Who they?"
"The books. They are in the Duck Pond, the Holyoakes' cottage. It used to belong to Will, but now that Eric–"
"Th-that's unimportant," Dair interrupted his cousin-in-law, and she gave him a surprised look. "M-more tea?" he offered nonchalantly and got up to start the kettle.
Everyone grew quiet, which served Billie just fine. The last thing she wanted was for that old story to be dragged out for Dair to misinterpret.
After they finished the meal, Clem volunteered to do the washing up.
"Will you play with us, please?" one of the dark-haired girls asked Billie.
"I'm sure Uncle Eric and Ms. Harewicke have got work to do," Clem said hurriedly and turned to Billie. "Don't feel obliged, please. They've got books, paints and crayons, and plenty of games."
Billie would rather read said books; she was sure they were of the highest standard considering that the girls' Mother was one of the best modern mystery writers, and their father owned one of the largest publishing houses in the country. Talk of family envy! Billie would even agree on painting and colouring, if she were honest.
"I've g-got the script and the m-materials in my car," Dair said.
Billie accepted her fate and dragged herself into the sitting room.
***
An hour later, Billie was absorbed in reading the script, curled in one of Nana Holyoake's enormous wingbacks. She had to borrow some paper and several coloured pencils from the girls and was taking notes - when she remembered, that was; which wasn't easy. It was after all Margo Adley! The author was a master of suspense!
Billie had heard of The Green Glove, one of Adley's early unfinished novels that the script was based on; but Billie was utterly unprepared for the plot twists, for the depravity of the characters, and the crass yet succinct language. She could also see why Bondarenko wanted Billingsley and Dair for the two protagonists. The pair of them were definitely giving out the whole Sherlock and Moriarty, or Deschain and Flagg, or even McMurphy and Ratched vibe. Billingley's Inspector Munt - intellectual, cocaine-addicted, disillusioned, and cynical, emaciated due to a blood disorder - was an excellent opponent for Dair's Clayton Milton, a nouveau riche, cunning and ruthless former boxer, prone to berserker rage fits, accused and later acquitted of beating his unfaithful upper-class wife to death. The characters clash a year after Mrs. Milton's murder when Munt receives an anonymous letter informing him that Milton is having a party in his newly purchased stately home, where he's planning to announce his engagement to his late wife's sister. The 'happy couple,' the Inspector, a dozen guests, and about the same number of servants end up stranded in the house, trapped by a snowstorm; and things quickly get out of hand. Bondarenko was surely getting more out of her location research that she could ask for.
Billie closed the last page, dropped her head back, and closed her eyes. After a literary adventure of such potency, she required a moment to return to her tedious reality. And then her eyes flew open, and she stared at Dair, who was lying on the sofa, stretched in all his impressive height, one arm behind his back, earphones on. Suddenly, her real life didn't seem so humdrum! She'd just finished reading a riveting piece of literature - and she didn't have to say goodbye to the characters! A version of a protagonist was lounging in front of her, the fingers of his other hand lazily playing with the tassels on the afghan thrown over his middle. And said version wasn't complete yet; the film hadn't come out yet; they hadn't botched it up yet - like they did with every Rochester, Hester Prynne, Wentworth, Oak, and Mary Poppins.
Dair's thick feathery lashes fluttered, and he met Billie's eyes.
"This–" Billie lifted the stack of print-outs in the air. "–is magnificent."
Dair pulled the earphones out.
"P-pardon?"
"I finished the script, and I think–"
His eyebrows jumped up. "You f-finished it already?!"
"I'm a certified speed reader," Billie dismissed. She rocked forward in the armchair and shook the script in her hand. "I can see why Bondarenko wants to do it. And I think I know exactly how to convince her to film it in the Hall. Also, what are you planning to do with Milton's temper? How are you playing his outbursts? Is he mad? Clinically insane? Faking it? Blimey, Adley's a genius!" Billie was raising her voice. "How do you 'pluck out the heart of his mystery?' The scene on the balcony is so ambiguous, it's electrifying! I've got goosebumps!" she exclaimed and thrust her free arm towards him.
He lunged forward, his bottom still on the sofa, his upper half suspended mid-air by the strength of his surely exceptional core muscles. His fingers wrapped around her wrist; he pulled; and Billie fell into his arms like an old tatty duffle bag out of an overhead storage compartment on a coach.
"Eric!" she yelped.
He pinched the sleeve of her pyjama top and bared her forearm.
"What are you doing?" Billie hissed, tingling head to toe.
"Ch-checking your goose–" He pressed his lips to the round bone on the inside of her wrist. "–bumps."
Three more tiny kisses followed, each closer to her elbow.
"But the children– and Clem–" Billie sounded ridiculously breathy.
"You're so f-fit when you're f-fired up about books," he purred, stretched, and nuzzled her neck. "Carina, deliziosa... And I d-don't know what I'm doing with Milton. I'm only h-half in. D-dyslexic, yeah?"
"Do you want me–" A strangled little mewl escaped her, because his warm lips slid along the side of her neck.
"I do," he rumbled. "Cazzo, damn snow..."
"I was going to offer to read the script to you." Billie valiantly fought against the strange haze in her noggin. "And if you could share your thoughts– Um, Eric... Your thoughts on your character, and how he would have the house– Oh god..."
His hands were creeping up her hips, bunching up the shirt matching his trousers. Even through her leggings, it felt as if his palms were leaving sensitive marks on her skin.
"Just..." He drew her closer, and on top of him. "Un po' di più... B-bit more..."
Billie twisted from under his greedy mouth, pressed her hands into his shoulders, and shoved him back down onto the sofa.
"W–" Dair stopped in his tracks - and smirked. "Oh I s-see."
"One more, and then back to work," Billie ordered, cupped his jaw, and snogged him.