Two's Company

by Jill Mansell

  “Ha ha.” The flexible strips of Perspex were beginning to dig into Cleo’s hips. Surreptitiously easing the pressure with her fingers, realizing that two and a half hours in a cinema seat were going to be sheer hell, she heaved a noisy sigh.

  “Now what’s the matter?”

  “My dress hurts. Look, there’s the royal party.” Cleo pulled a face. “I must say the prince looks thrilled to be here. I know how he feels.”

  “This bad mood of yours.” A note of exasperation crept into Dino’s voice. “Planning on staying in it for long?”

  She glanced at him. “I might.”

  “Yeah? So when exactly did it start?”

  Cleo stuck out her lower lip. “Ages ago.”

  “You mean when you got dumped?”

  “Oh, hang on—”

  “When that guy dumped you,” Dino mused, slowly nodding his head. “That was months ago. Ah, now I get it. The thing for the TV cameras. That was for his benefit, right?”

  Cleo looked more mutinous than ever. “Maybe. But it wasn’t my fault I got dumped. He tricked me.”

  “Pull yourself together,” said Dino. Having never been in love for more than thirty minutes himself, he had no sympathy at all for Cleo’s plight. “And for Chrissake, cheer up. I’ve never seen such a miserable bloody face. Come on. They’re opening the doors.” He took Cleo’s hand. “We’ve got a film to watch.”

  “You mean a crappy film,” said Cleo. The stupid Perspex strips were still digging into her flesh. “And if you think I’m miserable,” she added, scowling as she followed Dino into the darkened auditorium, “you should meet my friend Linda.”

  * * *

  “This is crazy,” Dino sighed, four hours later. The film, as crappy as he had predicted, had had the effect of sending him to sleep. Waking up, he had found his pockets being rifled. The hopelessly contrived ending had reduced Cleo to tears and she—who never cried—was desperate for a handkerchief.

  The post-premiere party at the Ivy had improved matters not at all. Normally bursting with energy and game for anything, Cleo was unnaturally subdued. Not even bothering to table-hop, she sat, apparently lost in thought, endlessly stirring the bubbles out of her untouched glass of champagne.

  “Come on,” said Dino as they headed in the limousine back to Hampstead. “The guy’s history. You can’t keep letting him get to you like this.”

  “I know, I know.” It was what Cleo had spent the evening telling herself. It was just a shame, she thought, that it should be so easy to organize other people’s love lives and so bloody hard to sort out your own.

  “What you need is something to take your mind off him,” Dino went on, then corrected himself. “Or rather, someone.”

  Cleo had been telling herself that too. It certainly seemed to have worked for her mother, who had cheered up no end since the arrival of Rory Cameron in her life. Cleo wondered if it was possible to make yourself fancy someone, even if the sexual attraction wasn’t immediately apparent. It must be, she realized. Look at all the arranged marriages in the world. They seemed to work well enough.

  “What are you doing?” Dino looked startled as she slid along the back seat toward him.

  “It’s an experiment. Relax,” said Cleo. “It’s just something I want to try out.”

  Before she could lose her nerve, she took his face between her hands and drew him to her. She had, of course, kissed Dino loads of times before, but they had been kisses on the cheek, affectionate pecks, mere gestures of friendship.

  This time, it was different—the works, the full monty. This time, she meant business.

  The chauffeur, a consummate professional, recognized that now was not the time to stop the car. Instead, he drove smoothly past the gates of the Mandeville residence and carried on down the road. He would drive around in circles and await further instructions. In his opinion, the odds were on a trip back to Mayfair and Dino Carlisle’s five-star hotel. Lucky sod.

  While the chauffeur cast discreet glances in his rearview mirror, Cleo concentrated all her attention on Dino. Kissing him was surprisingly easy, and it was nice that—having overcome his initial surprise—he was joining in. His mouth was soft, and he tasted faintly of champagne. She liked, too, the way his fingers lightly stroked the back of her neck. That was something Joel had often done.

  “Sorry.” Cleo pulled away with regret. “It isn’t going to work.”

  Dino raised an eyebrow. “I see. You tried me out, and I failed the audition. Now you’re going to toss me aside.” He paused. “Like a used condom.”

  “I did say it was an experiment.” But that was the great thing about Dino and their friendship; Cleo knew he wasn’t really offended. She tucked an arm through his and gave it a conciliatory squeeze. “Pretty bizarre though. Most women shut their eyes when they’re with their awful husbands and fantasize that they’re being made love to by some gorgeous Hollywood movie star. And here I am…”

  “Charming.” Dino gave her a pained look. “You mean there I was, giving it my all, and all the time, you were pretending I was your hopeless case of a used-car salesman.”

  “I can’t help it.” Cleo started to laugh. “He’s not a hopeless case. And I did say I was sorry.”

  “So I should bloody well hope,” Dino drawled. “You took shameless advantage of me. I’m crushed. Who knows, I may never recover…”

  “That bad, huh?” Cleo half smiled. “In that case, you should definitely meet my friend Linda.”

  He grew serious. “I’m still worried about you.”

  “Oh, I’ll be OK. I’ll meet someone else.”

  “What, another used-car salesman?”

  Cleo was beginning to feel better. “Definitely not.”

  “Hmm,” said Dino. “The way you’re going, you’ll end up with a real estate agent.”

  “Left here, sir?”

  They were back outside the house. The chauffeur momentarily met Dino’s eyes in the mirror.

  “Left here, Edward.” Dino briefly nodded. “Tell me, Edward, between us men, what were you betting on? A quick U-turn back to the hotel?”

  “Beg pardon, sir?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Dino’s grin was unrepentant. “Me too.”

  Chapter 46

  Pandora, lying in bed, heard the rattle of the mailbox downstairs. The papers, all eight of them, landed with a series of thuds on the doormat. She hoped the noise wouldn’t wake Rose. She wondered if Sean, next to her, was really as asleep as he looked.

  It was hard to believe a whole year had passed since Donny had discovered and hijacked her diary. Harder still to believe that, the idea having been sold to a highly regarded production company who had in turn—eventually—persuaded ITV they had a ratings winner on their hands, the series was about to be made.

  It was a dream come true. At last, Pandora could admit to Sean what she had done. All she had to do was take a deep breath and say it.

  Any day now, she promised herself. But not quite yet.

  Sean’s own series for Channel 4, due to be screened months ago, had twice been shelved, apparently as a result of scheduling difficulties. Rumors had begun to circulate, hinting that maybe it wasn’t as great as the producers had first hoped. Sean, desperate to scotch that particular item of malicious gossip, had taken time off from the club, planning to write a whole load of dazzling new material. He had promptly gone down with comic’s block. The funniness wouldn’t come. Nothing he wrote was even remotely amusing. Yet more rumors began to do the rounds: he was burned out, washed up, finished.

  Unused to failure and far too proud to admit his feelings to anyone, least of all Pandora, Sean had reacted by spending less and less time at home. Pandora, who knew exactly how he felt but was powerless in the face of such determined stonewalling even to begin to help, had kept her own exciting news to herself. It was all Sean needed to hear, she d
ecided, when his own career was going through such a dodgy patch. When Channel 4 decided to screen Sean’s series and he had a few encouraging reviews to boost his self-confidence, then she would tell him…

  Meanwhile, it was something of a novelty having Sean here next to her in the bed. Even when he did come home these days, he was more likely to crash out on the sofa than make it upstairs. Gazing down at him, Pandora felt the familiar involuntary leap in her chest as her heart turned over. Too damn handsome for his own good—that was how a female columnist had described him in one of the tabloids the other week. She had followed it up with the scathing question: But is this the comic’s equivalent of premature ejaculation? Has Sean Mandeville run too soon out of steam?

  Sean had reacted with predictable fury to the article. It didn’t make him easy to live with.

  Life, Pandora thought wearily, would be a whole lot easier if only she didn’t love him so much.

  “I’m not asleep,” said Sean. He opened his eyes and rolled over onto his side. “You may as well go down and get them.”

  The first episode of Sean Mandeville on Show had been screened last night. Now all they had to do was find out how it had been reviewed. The fact that it had gone out against unfairly stiff opposition—ITV had premiered a big-budget Tom Hanks movie—was not, Pandora felt, a promising start.

  Rose, sixteen months old now and as light a sleeper as ever, heard the stairs creak as Pandora tiptoed downstairs. Ears-on-elastic, Donny had taken to calling her. In his view, Rose would make a terrific concierge when she grew up.

  By the time Pandora had made tea, heated a bottle, and collected the great heap of papers on the hall floor, Rose’s yells had worn Sean down. Back upstairs, Pandora found the two of them sitting up together in bed. Climbing in next to them, she winced. Rose’s diaper was sopping wet. It would never occur to Sean to do the honors and put her into a dry one.

  The next ten minutes ranked among the worst of Pandora’s life. As Sean scanned each review in turn, his face grew progressively stonier. A muscle twitched in his clamped jaw. The only sounds in the room came from Rose, happily slurping from her bottle with one hand and shredding the torso of a Sun page-three girl with the other.

  Finally shoving the whole pile of papers across to Pandora, Sean pulled back the dark-blue duvet, levered himself out of bed, and disappeared without a word into the bathroom.

  “Oh dear, a dud from Mandeville!” sneered the first review Pandora came to. “Sean’s Yawn,” declared the second before going on to catalogue his apparently endless failings. “Sean Mandeville has the looks of a film star,” the third critic had written, “and the wit of one too. Sadly, that film star is Lassie. Lassie, go home. Please.”

  The rest were just as scathing. The reviewers seemed to be falling all over themselves to outdo each other in the insult stakes. Only one had suggested the fault might lie with the program’s actual format, which intercut the live stand-up with documentary-style behind-the-scenes footage. This had resulted in the loss of any sense of continuity. It was an idea that hadn’t worked out. You couldn’t sit back and enjoy the comedy because it was never on for long enough. You couldn’t enjoy the documentary because it kept being interrupted by the stand-up.

  Pandora felt sick. Reviews this bad were going to have the viewers turning off in droves. This was terrible news for Sean. What he must be going through right now didn’t bear thinking about.

  “What?” Sean said irritably when she pressed the handle of the bathroom door and found it unlocked. For a terrible second, Pandora wondered if he had been crying. But when he turned to look at her, she saw only blazing anger in the coal-black eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” She felt so helpless. All she could do was let him know she was on his side.

  “What for? Did you write the reviews?”

  “No, but—”

  “Well then. Don’t apologize.” The last thing Sean wanted was Pandora feeling sorry for him. At that moment, just to twist the knife a stage further, Rose appeared in the doorway. Sodden diaper dangling, she waddled across the bathroom and flung her arms around Sean’s legs.

  “Danny. Danny.”

  “Daddy,” Pandora hurriedly corrected. Rose had taken to muddling up Daddy and Donny, which didn’t amuse Sean in the least.

  “Everyone who’s anyone has had rotten reviews in their time,” she went on, even though Sean plainly wasn’t interested. Making it up, Pandora said, “James Corden, Graham Norton, Will Ferrell—”

  “Don’t patronize me.” Sean pried Rose’s loving arms off his knees, picked her up, and handed her to Pandora. “Do something useful instead. Take her downstairs. I’m going to have a shower. And if the phone rings, for Christ’s sake, don’t speak to any journalists.”

  Sean was out of the house before nine. He didn’t say where he was going, and Pandora hadn’t the heart to ask. She was not very successfully spooning cornflakes into Rose’s mouth when the phone rang. Only when Pandora heard who was on the other end did she switch off the answering machine and pick up the call.

  “Well? Did you tell him?”

  “Oh, please.” Men, thought Pandora. They could be so male sometimes. “Of course I didn’t tell him. Have you seen the reviews for last night?”

  “Only the Sun and the Express. They were enough to be going on with.”

  Donny was in a good mood. There was, after all, something satisfying about Sean Mandeville getting his comeuppance at last. Realizing belatedly that it wasn’t so easy for Pandora, he said, “Come on. He’ll survive. Everyone gets knocked back at some stage.”

  “I know.” Pandora spoke with feeling. “Just don’t try telling Sean that, OK?”

  “You still have to break the news to him about your series,” Donny chided. “They’re about to go into production. It’s hardly the kind of thing you can keep quiet.”

  “I know that too.” Pandora sighed. “But have a heart. Not just yet.”

  On the other end of the line, Donny gazed at the clearly defined white bikini strap mark across the smooth, brown back of the girl lying asleep next to him. He had picked her up at Comedy Inc. last night, and he was almost sure her name was Sarah. Pandora disapproved of his one-night stands, which Donny felt was pretty rich when you considered how she had come to get so hopelessly involved with Sean.

  Donny had a heart all right. Sadly, it belonged to Pandora.

  “How about lunch?” he said. Theirs really was the daftest of relationships, in some ways not unlike a furtive affair. With all the subterfuge, thought Donny, and none of the sex.

  “Lunch?” Pandora sounded doubtful. She watched her daughter plunge both hands into the blue bowl of cornflakes.

  “You said he’d gone out. I’ll come and pick you up.”

  “What about Rose?”

  “She’ll be all right. We’ll find somewhere child friendly.” Next to him, the girl whose name was probably Sarah began to stir. Donny’s heart sank as he saw the mascara stains imprinted on his pale-green pillowcase. Didn’t these women realize what hell mascara was to get out?

  “Not Le Gavroche then,” Pandora said gravely. “Ugh, are you sure you can put up with her? She’s just stuffed cornflakes into her ears.”

  Donny grinned. He adored Rose. “How is my girl anyway?”

  “Fine, thanks.” Sarah—it was definitely Sarah—opened her eyes. “I wouldn’t say no to a coffee though.” She looked at Donny. “Who’s that you’re talking to?”

  “My wife.”

  “OK, come around at twelve,” said Pandora. “I should have finished shampooing breakfast out of her hair by then.” She paused. “Are you talking to someone else?”

  Donny wondered why nobody had thought of manufacturing disposable pillowcases for one-night stands.

  “No one,” he said blithely. “Twelve o’clock it is.”

  As he replaced the receiver, Sarah proppe
d herself up on her elbows. Unaware of the mascara streaking her cheeks, she said, “Did I hear someone say Le Gavroche? Can I come too?”

  Chapter 47

  Sean had known better days. A meeting with his blandly reassuring agent did nothing to reassure him. Every cab he took was driven by some loud-mouthed git who had, naturally, watched last night’s show and was full of opinions as to precisely where he had gone wrong.

  Having decided the person with whom he wanted to drown his sorrows was Donny, Sean had been unable to get in touch with him. Not in the mood to face the rest of the crowd at Comedy Inc., he ended up instead in an almost deserted pub in Camden Town where, if the barman recognized him, at least he had the decency not to say so. There, silently brooding and making commendable progress through a bottle of Glenmorangie, he might have stayed all afternoon.

  Instead, another customer came into the bar. “Ah, it’s you.”

  Looking up, Sean found himself being addressed by a complete stranger, a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed mustache and highly polished shoes.

  When Sean didn’t reply, the stranger said, “Well, well, hardly surprising you’ve fallen flat on your face. You know where you went wrong, don’t you, lad?”

  Fan-fucking-tastic. This is all I need, thought Sean. To be collared by yet another know-it-all, a Mr. Fixit with a surefire cure for failure. What was he, an off-duty cabbie?

  “No.” He had to say something. The man was standing right over him, less than two feet away. Wearily, Sean glanced up. “Why don’t you tell me? Where did I go wrong?”

  “Didn’t stick with your own kind, did you?” The look in the stranger’s pale eyes was one of triumph. “Had to mess with one from the other side. And knock her up. You should be ashamed of yourself, my lad. Oh yes, you should. And that’s why your TV show’s crap. Don’t you get it? This is your punishment. Serves you right, see, for betraying your own kind.”

  Sean may have been drinking, but he was still fast. Less than a second later, the man lay flat on his back, groaning.