Lisa heard Red’s key in the door. That was one change. She couldn’t believe how used she was becoming to Redmond in her life, or how her heart still leapt when he returned.
“Hi,” she called, and Redmond came in, kicked off his shoes, and kissed her on the top of the head.
“Hi Red,” Jerry added. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds in peace, shall I?”
“OK,” Lisa agreed. “See you soon.”
She dropped the phone, intending to ask Redmond what he’d been doing, but when he fell onto the sofa beside her and pulled her back for a proper kiss, she decided that Red and Jerry were right. Once again, the questions could wait.
Chapter 14
Arriving at the hotel on Friday afternoon, Lisa and Redmond checked in together, and Lisa marvelled that already it seemed thoroughly natural to go up to their room together, taking a moment to sneak a kiss in the lift on the way. Without discussing it, they seemed even to have come to an agreement about who would lay claim to which side of the bed. They wouldn’t have trouble convincing anyone they were a couple now!
Lisa flopped back on the big, soft mattress and lay there. She was surprisingly weary considering how early in the day it was. Although she’d decided to put her concerns about the future on the back burner until after the final, they had a way of sneaking back in at night, leaving her sleeping fitfully and waking more tired than she’d gone to bed. Redmond, on the other hand, seemed full of energy, and wanted to go out and explore the town.
“Do I have to? It’s so comfortable here. And Blackpool won’t have changed. The same tacky arcades, the same pointless shops, the same cold wind.” Lisa kicked off her shoes and curled up under the duvet to emphasise her point.
“Stay if you like. I’m going to have a look around,” Redmond said, making for the door.
“Hang on — I’ll come!” Lisa got little enough time to spend with Redmond — she didn’t want to waste any. And besides, it wouldn’t do her any good being left alone to brood.
After a brief look in some of the tackier gift shops and a laugh about the absurd items for sale, Redmond led her down to the beach. The sky was just beginning to soften to a sunset pink, and Lisa had to admit that it was beautiful, but it wasn’t long before she decided she needed to get out of the chill wind. Redmond accompanied her back to the hotel, despite her insistence that he go on without her if he wanted to.
On the way back to the hotel, Redmond’s mobile rang. The shrill sound no longer startled Lisa. She’d learned to recognise it, and hate it for the way it could always interrupt their lives and their time together.
Redmond greeted the caller, listened for a moment, and said, “OK. I’m with someone at the moment. Can I call you back shortly?”
Lisa laughed at his crisp, professional tones. If she’d been on the other end of the phone, she’d have pictured him in a suit at a big mahogany desk, talking to a couple of Wall Street power brokers, not strolling through Blackpool with a recently unemployed would-be dance professional.
“You could have taken the call,” she said when he hung up. “I don’t mind.”
“I’d rather talk to you,” Redmond said. “Anyway, it’s kind of confidential at the moment, and even if it wasn’t it’s better that I don’t tell you too much about what might be happening until it’s a bit more definite.”
Now Lisa’s curiosity was piqued, and they squabbled gently about it all the way back to the hotel.
Then Redmond vanished into a borrowed meeting room with his mobile phone. She still hadn’t got a word out of him about what was going on. It annoyed her. She told him everything that was happening in her life. He’d even been the first to know about her job situation. And in return, she got precisely nothing.
She was delighted to run into Elaine in the lobby, which gave her a chance to grumble, but Elaine just laughed at her.
“What do you expect?” Elaine said. “It’s Redmond. He’ll tell you when he’s good and ready.”
And with that Lisa had to be content, because Elaine instantly drew her over to a table and started a discussion about the dancing and dresses in the previous round, and what Lisa and Redmond would be wearing for the all-important final.
“No idea.” Lisa shrugged.
Elaine was scandalised, but Lisa laughingly threw her own words back at her: “What do you expect? It’s Redmond. Well, Redmond and the wardrobe department. I just turn up and do what I’m told.”
“That’s a first,” Elaine teased. “So, how’s life apart from Redmond and dancing?”
“Lousy,” Lisa shot back with unusual vehemence, causing Elaine to raise her eyebrows and Mark, who’d just approached the table with a tray, to flinch dramatically and pretend to change his mind and retreat to a free table with the two coffees he’d just collected from the bar.
“Why?” Elaine asked, grabbing Mark’s wrist to prevent him fleeing, and narrowly avoiding pitching both the drinks to the floor.
So Lisa briefly recounted the story of her disaster. Elaine rolled her eyes at Lisa’s stupidity, while Mark, surprisingly, was sympathetic.
Both of them made reassuring noises that “something will turn up,” which she found unreasonably annoying. What did they know about employment outside the dancing world? It was years since they’d done anything except run the studio, and it wasn’t as if they had any concrete suggestions, just kind, encouraging mumblings that meant nothing in the end.
“Everyone’s so bloody sure that it’ll all sort itself out — you’d think worrying had been banned,” she grumbled to Redmond afterwards, when he finished his call and came to escort her up to their room.
“So it should be, with the final coming up. Plenty of time to worry afterwards if you find you need to. But you can’t let it spoil the competition. A job is just a job. Dancing is your life. Don’t tell me that’s not true — you couldn’t dance the way you do if you didn’t care so much about it.”
“Caring doesn’t pay the bills, though.”
“No, but dancing could. Have you ever thought about teaching full time?”
“I’d love to, but I can’t see it happening.”
“Never say never.” Redmond was his usual optimistic self, but Lisa knew just how likely it was. Mind you, Elaine had said something similar. She was almost beginning to feel that everyone else knew something she didn’t. Either that, or they were pretending to, in the hope of stopping her worrying and spoiling their chances in the competition. Elaine and Mark did have a lot riding on this event, after all. It would be understandable if they were more concerned about her performance than her job. In fact, it occurred to her now, they were actually surprisingly laid back, considering the circumstances. The more she thought about it, the odder everyone’s behaviour seemed.
She was about to remark on it to Redmond but they both began speaking at the same time and on balance she was more interested in hearing what he had to say.
“Go on,” she insisted.
“I was just going to ask if you wanted a quick run-through of the routine before tomorrow.”
“We can’t get into the ballroom until tomorrow, can we?”
“No, but the hotel’s got a ballroom upstairs that’s not being used for a function tonight, so they’ve kindly agreed that we can use it, as long as we don’t mind if a few of the staff come and have a look in when they’re off duty.”
“OK,” Lisa agreed, thinking that dancing was the only thing that could take her mind off the impossibility of her situation right now. “If we’re going to have an audience, should we dress for it?”
“I thought so.”
Lisa laid the white dress out on the bed and eyed it critically. The stain wasn’t too obvious, she thought, smiling at the memory of how it had arrived there. She looked sidelong at Redmond, wondering if he was thinking the same thing, but he was apparently abs
orbed in setting out his own clothes.
He must have been watching more than Lisa realised, though, because as soon as she began undressing he materialised behind her, helping to tug her T-shirt over her head and unfasten her bra.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready yourself?” Lisa felt compelled to ask.
“I’ve only got to change my shirt and waistcoat,” he pointed out, running his thumbs down her shoulderblades and beginning massaging in soothing circles back up towards her shoulders. Lisa surrendered, leaning slightly into his hands and enjoying the way the tension dropped out of her muscles.
“You want to be careful,” she murmured, “or I’ll be too relaxed to dance.”
“Don’t worry,” Redmond answered, and Lisa was sure she could hear a cheeky grin in his voice. “I’m sure we can find a way of stirring you up again if necessary.”
“Maybe later,” she said, too drowsy to ask what he meant, although she had a suspicion she could guess. Just now she was enjoying the massage too much to care, and she was disappointed when Redmond finally dropped a kiss on her shoulder, reached for her dress, and lifted it over her head.
“Mmm, that was nice,” Lisa said lazily as she smoothed down the skirt and tugged the neck straps into place. “Tie this for me?” she asked, and Redmond obliged, then turned her around and straightened the top for her, spending a little longer smoothing the fabric over her breasts than necessary.
“Ooops.” He smiled, noticing how the thin fabric showed her reacting to his touch. “Better not do that if anyone’s looking!”
“I should hope you weren’t going to anyway,” Lisa snapped back, though the snapping was largely for show. Apparently Redmond knew what he was doing, because she felt more relaxed, yet alert, than she had all week.
“Now are you going to get ready?” she demanded.
“If I must.”
“I’ve only got my makeup to do,” Lisa pointed out.
“Okay, okay, I’m getting ready. See?” He pointedly unbuttoned his shirt.
“Good,” Lisa said, in the tone she used for her kids’ class when they were having an awkward day, and went to get her makeup bag.
By now, doing stage makeup was a well-practised routine that took only a few moments, so by the time Redmond was changed she was putting her brushes back in her bag and scraping her hair into a bun.
So they made their way up the sweeping staircase to the ballroom with their small CD player. Although the sound was slightly lost in the large room Lisa was soon able to lose herself in the music and Redmond’s flawless leading. Her nerves and tiredness after the journey were taking their toll, however, and she was conscious that she wasn’t dancing quite as well as usual. Redmond didn’t say anything while they were dancing, but he frowned a lot, which added to Lisa’s unease. It was a useful session, however. There were occasional interruptions from the staff, who seemed surprisingly star-struck for a hotel where Lisa would have imagined that many celebritites stayed. But in between the interruptions, Lisa and Red smoothed out their routine for the tango until they were confident with it, and still finished in plenty of time to get an early night.
• • •
Some time during the night she must have moved, because in the morning she woke to find herself rolled tightly in the duvet, and Redmond nowhere to be seen. A great start to their most important day so far, she thought bitterly, getting up and dragging on some tracksuit bottoms and a shirt so that she could go and look for him.
He wasn’t in the restaurant, though she knew he always liked a hearty breakfast before competitions. Lisa was always too keyed up to eat beforehand, but usually made up for it afterwards. Nor was he in the meeting rooms, or the small shop by the hotel reception.
She was about to head outside to look for him when an image on the front of one of the tabloids caught her eye. It looked so familiar, it took her a second to work out what was different about the picture. Of course. Seen through the photographer’s lens, she had a different perspective on Redmond’s proposal to her. There was Redmond kneeling in front of her, looking up appealingly as he had when he proposed, but now she could also see her own stunned smile. Both the joy and the fear that she’d hardly dared to acknowledge to herself were clearly visible, and she shuddered at the knowledge that soon everyone would see them. Of course, the purpose of publicity was to be seen, but looking at this picture, she felt more than visible. She felt exposed.
She’d been in the papers before, of course. She and Jerry had been something of a local celebrity couple for a short while. But never anything like this. Three out of the four main tabloids had splashed one or more of the dancing couples across their front pages, and even one of the broadsheets had a postage stamp sized picture of Redmond and Lisa in one corner, this time snapped just after the proposal.
Suddenly she felt conspicuous, and wished she’d made the effort to put on some decent clothes, but curiously the scruffy outfit seemed to render her invisible. Tim was standing with his back to her, bending over a copy of the Telegraph, but the man he was chatting to was facing Lisa, yet was apparently oblivious to her presence.
“ … sweet,” the older man was saying, but Tim shook his head vehemently.
“You’re kidding, right?” Tim said, and eyeing him over the random women’s magazine she’d picked up, Lisa saw him shake his head vehemently. “You can’t be that naïve! He knew exactly what he was doing. Has to have done.” Tim waved his paper for emphasis, and the little newsprint Redmond and Lisa bobbed their heads in unison. “Win or lose, he’s won in terms of publicity now, and let’s face it, publicity’s half the battle in this business. Maybe more than half.”
Lisa’s heart lurched and a sick feeling settled into the pit of her stomach.
He wouldn’t have proposed to her just to ensure they were the most talked about couple in the competition. Would he? But it all stacked up so well. At first he hadn’t wanted to get involved, but once he knew they had a place in the competition, he’d become so attentive she’d been fooled into thinking he cared about her, and not just about getting his face on the front of the papers. What had made her think he’d put her first, when eight years ago he’d proved that his career came before everything?
Lisa spun round (still a dancer, even in despair, she noticed dully) and stumbled blindly out of the shop and through the corridors to the hotel garden. She always thought best outdoors, and the sight of flowers usually brought her tranquillity, but today all there was to look at was evergreens and the dead heads of roses killed by the first frost. The garden certainly suited her mood. Round and round she went, gathering arguments on both sides.
She picked up a last lingering daisy and tugged at the petals. Redmond had been there for her constantly since he returned to England (he loves me) but he hadn’t kept in touch while he was away and for all she knew he’d leave again tomorrow (he loves me not). He’d been instantly at her side when she stumbled outside the restaurant (he loves me) but his first thought had been her dancing, not herself (he loves me not). He’d asked her to marry him (he loves me) but refused to talk about it afterwards (he loves me not). He’d proposed in front of thousands of people — but because he loved her so much, or because he wanted the audience to remember Lisa and Redmond out of all the contestants?
So he’d taken advantage of a publicity opportunity, she argued with herself — did that make him a bad person? Did it mean her answer should have been different? It wasn’t as if there was anyone else she wanted. Wasn’t a marriage of convenience with Redmond still a million times better than being married to anyone else? Logically she thought it would be, but her heart resisted. This wasn’t what she’d waited for, what she’d dreamed of all these years. She had to find Redmond, tell him she couldn’t do it. But how would she find the strength to face him after that, to dance with him, look into his eyes and smile across the dance floor. Sure, she was an
actress, but there were some limits. She knew she wouldn’t be able to say a word without crying, so the only answer was not to say a word.
With her emotions clamped tightly inside, she went back indoors to smarten herself up ready for the day’s dancing. Despite the dull despair settling over her, she wouldn’t even consider not dancing. For one thing, dancing was all she had left, and for another, Elaine and Mark’s hopes for the studio were resting on her and Redmond. She couldn’t let them down.
Mercifully, the room was still empty when she got back, so she quickly tugged on her dress and took a book to the far corner of the lobby to hide until it was time to dance. She didn’t want to see Redmond today for longer than she needed to. Not now she’d realised what was happening. How could he? Her heart raced with anger and she pressed her fingers tightly into her palms, not minding the pain of her nails digging into her skin. It distracted her from the greater pain of realising that she’d been a fool: trusting Redmond when he told her nothing and gave away nothing except what suited him.
She found herself checking her watch every few moments, waiting for it to be time to dance. In that, at least, she knew she would find comfort. If only her partner for the day was anyone except Redmond! She’d have given anything for Jerry’s cheeky grin or Gavin’s clumsy efforts, but then she’d be giving up Elaine and Mark’s hopes along with hers. For them, she must be strong, until after the final. Then she could flee from this terrible, impossible situation. Everything she’d ever wanted was hers — Redmond in her bed and his ring soon to be on her finger — but how could she enjoy it when she was so certain it was happening for all the wrong reasons? Maybe, she thought with a sudden flash of hope, it wasn’t selfishness that motivated him, but a confused sort of kindness — wanting things to succeed for Mark and Elaine and maybe even a little for her, because if the studio took off, she’d have a job there and he could return to America knowing that she was safe and happy. That made her feel a little less gloomy, but still the thought of his departure, when she’d let herself believe for the last few ridiculous, wonderful weeks that he’d be staying, cut her to the quick.
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