A Villain for Christmas (The Holyoake Christmas Series, Book 2)

Dair Gains Clearance

Billie was spared answering him, because Bondarenko was back and he was ushered to make more coffee. Once they were properly 'doped up' - Billie's heart was drumming in her throat like a tabor drum that Mr. Cackletit, the local Mediaeval music enthusiast, performed on during the Fleckney Harvest Festival - Bondarenko announced it was time to start working.

To Billie's surprise, working, for Bondarenko, indeed applied a certain amount of 'engagement in physical or mental activity in order to achieve a result,' as per the verb's definition. For the next four hours, the director, with a tattered Moleskine journal in her hand, and Billie, bequeathed with the crew's work laptop, were wandering the Hall, researching. It was chaotic, challenging, gruelling work - which Billie didn't expect but loved so much! She still couldn't quite understand what it was that the film was going to be about, since Bondarenko would make Billie look up everything from the recipes from the 1930s to the estimated casualties in random battles during the Great War. Bondarenko's process was most fascinating to bear witness to: the director would jump up; dash from room to room; ask unrelated questions; suddenly start telling an anecdote, or discuss a character; interrupt herself; and take off again. Sometimes she'd shush Billie and sit down on whatever armchair or sofa was nearby, and sink into deep silence - only to jolt out of her meditation and start scribbling furiously in her notebook.

At some point they were caught by Mrs. Little, the Hall's housekeeper, and escorted to a small dining room. The lunch they were served was one of the best Billie had ever eaten in her life. While chewing a sandwich with lamb, tartar, lettuce, and sea buckthorn relish - according to the restaurant's press release, everything 'farm to table' and Fleckney-made - Billie remembered the morning.

"Where's... Eric?" she asked, looking around. Wasn't he coeliac?

Calling him by his first name felt odd. Bondarenko paused with her sarnie mid-air and then burst into coarse chortles.

"You only just noticed?" she snorted. "He left after about twenty minutes; but you were so busy raving about the Hall's library, you totally ignored him. The puppy eyes he was giving you! Who knew the guy could look so pitiful!" The director shook her head and chomped off a quarter of her sandwich. "Honestly I don't get it. What does he see in you?" the Russian said, her cheek rounded with food.

Billie immediately felt significantly less hungry.

"He dated that French chick before. What's her face..." The Russian hummed pensively, and then popped a parsnip crisp in her mouth. "The skinny, blonde one, everyone was obsessing over her after that psychological thriller. The movie was mediocre, but she's not bad, actually. She's in the perfume commercials too, on every damn billboard. Hm... Nope, it's just not coming back to me. Whatever." Bondarenko shrugged. "And then she was caught in some club, on someone's cell camera, kissing Harry Styles or another of those decaf plastic boy-toys, and Eric sent her packing. There was even a video someone leaked - of her begging him to take her back. She was as much as on her knees. But the man's so-o-o Italian when it comes to relationships. A woman is either a Madonna, or a whore. You should ask Laura to do her impersonation of his inner monologue for you." Bondarenko pursed her fingers into the hackneyed gesture and shook her hand in the air. "'Ma che cazzo! How are you going to kiss my sons with that dirty mouth of yours?!" Bondarenko roared in a ridiculous lowered voice. "'No, no, no, restiamo solo amici.' And by the way, if an Italian guy tells you he wants to be friends with you, he's either trying to get in your panties, if that's how it starts between you two - or he's given up on you and you'll never see him again. The latter, in Eric and that French chick's case. Oh dang it, what was her name? It's on the tip of my tongue."

Bondarenko stuffed the rest of her sarnie in her mouth and brushed the crumbs off her hands. Billie picked up her napkin and put it on the table next to her unfinished plate.