Farm Fatale Read Online Free PDF Page A

of which"—Mark was now capering gleefully round the hallway—"Househusband went on a drunken bender in his car, had an accident, and lost his license. So he can't drive Miss Daisy anymore. Even if his wife hadn't taken her to Monaco with her, which she has. So guess what's happened now?"
        "Can't imagine. Wife and Forex dealer writing the column between them, are they?"
        A slightly scared expression, as if the idea hadn't actually occurred to anybody, briefly crossed Mark's face. Then the grin returned. "No. They've given me a column. At last."
        Rosie swallowed. This was it then. All of Mark's dreams had come true. They'd never leave London now. At least, he wouldn't.
        "This is my chance," yelped Mark. "The big break I've been waiting for."
        "Good for you," croaked Rosie.
        "Well, don't you want to know what I'll be writing about?"
        Rosie bulldozed a smile across her face. "Tell me."
        "You'll be thrilled."
        "Will I?" Rosie doubted it.
        Mark nodded. "Now that Househusband's collapsed, they need to start a weekly column about something else. Some other current topic. So I had this idea of doing something about people who've moved from the city to the country. The editor agreed it would be the perfect subject."
        Rosie stared. Funny, but there was something familiar-sounding about that.
        "Very keen, he was," Mark continued, "especially after I'd thrown in all that stuff you said about the countryside being the new rock 'n' roll and how every supermodel worth her Wonderbra contract is chopping wood and making chutney. Loved all those statistics too—seventy-five percent of actresses converting butcher shops or whatever it was you said. The editors got this idea that moving from the city to the country is the millennium dream and he wants me to write about what it's really like to swap the city for rural heaven. Thinks that will wow thousands of readers dying to leave loft apartments in Docklands for sweeping acres of Derbyshire."
        "But how are you going to do that?" asked Rosie. "How can you write about what the countryside's really like from East Ham?"
        "Well, we won't be living in East Ham obviously."
        "You mean…?"
        Mark nodded. "We'll move to the country. I'll go freelance. Write it from there. We'll leave London."
        As tears of joy and relief sprang to her eyes, Rosie leaned back against the wall. That the afternoon from hell had mutated into the evening in which all earthly desires were granted was all a bit too much to take in.
        "I've finally got a column !" Mark's eyes were shining. "I can't tell you how much it means to me. Rosie!" He flung his arms about her and whirled her round in the air. "I love you, I love you. I love you ."
        "I love you too." Rosie giggled. There was no one quite as ebullient as Mark when he was happy, just as there was no one quite as miserable when he wasn't. She suddenly felt exhausted, as if she had fought a long and losing battle and then suddenly and unexpectedly won. Yet in the sunny blue skies of her happiness, there hung a tiny cloud of concern.
        "Will they pay you well? I mean, will it be enough to live on?"
        Mark dumped her unceremoniously back on the carpet tiles, a cagey look on his face. "We're still discussing that. Cuts, you know. They're being their usual difficult bastard selves about it." He grinned devastatingly at her. "But hell, Rosie, what does it matter? I've got my byline at last. Picture byline if I can swing it. Or find a reasonable passport one."
        Rosie tried not to dwell on the fact that the paper's refusal even to fund a proper photograph hardly promised wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.
        "Anyway," Mark enthused, "houses will be much cheaper in the country. We'll never be able to afford to buy anything in London, not with property prices the way they are. We can't afford this