His brow furrows.
‘Well, we did get drunk and end up in bed once. But if I gave you the impression it was anything other than a mistake, I’m sorry. That’s all it was. We’ve been trying to deal with it ever since. It was before you arrived, long before Otty fell for you.’
Fraser’s eyes are still. I can’t work out if he believes me. I hate every word queuing on my tongue like the lines at the food stalls beside us. Because once they’re voiced, there’s no going back.
‘She’s devastated. She thinks you hate her.’
‘I don’t…’
‘She did nothing wrong. It was all me. All Otty has ever tried to do is love people. Make them happy. She is a good person, a brave, beautiful soul. And she needs to be cherished because believe me, Fraser, you won’t find another woman like her.’
‘But the night you spent with her?’
This is it. The moment I let her go.
‘It was a mistake. It meant nothing.’
I can’t say we return to the bar as friends, but there’s a truce at least. I rejoin the guys and down the fresh beer they offer me in one, raising my hand for another.
I don’t see when Fraser moves to Otty and spirits her away. I stare at the ground when speculation runs rife around the table about where they’ve gone. I trail the group past the Town Hall and the Museum and Art Gallery Otty loves so much, on through the new development at Paradise towards the Library of Birmingham and the lights of the Symphony Hall, my frozen breath rising steadily into the indigo sky.
I smile when I’m supposed to. I wait in line for bread pretzels and bratwurst rolls and yet more beer. I act like a man who hasn’t just ripped out his heart with his own hands and stamped it to the ground.
And when I finally see them, illuminated by the star-cloud of tiny white lights beneath the library’s black canopy, dancing slowly to the music of a busking band, I force myself to look. Otty’s head is against his chest, his hand cradling her to his body. She looks at peace. He looks like the luckiest bastard in the world.
It’s done.
Chapter Forty-Nine
OTTY
‘Otty.’
That voice, warm against my ear. And when I turn, the storm-cloud eyes have me at their centre. Fraser Langham looks scared to death. But he’s here.
‘Can we talk?’
He steps back, an invitation. I don’t even check to see if our friends are watching. I just stand up and follow him.
What does he want? And why choose tonight to speak to me when all he’s done is pretend I don’t exist? I don’t know whether to be surprised or annoyed that it’s taken him this long to acknowledge me.
It’s too loud in the crush of the Christmas Market, the ground too packed with jostling bodies to even hear ourselves think. So I lead Fraser past the entrance to the Museum and Art Gallery and down into Edmund Street at its side.
In the shadow beneath the the Museum’s Bridge Gallery that spans Edmund Street, Fraser’s features seem as carved as the stone above us. I look up and I’m surprised by what I see. Instead of hurt or judgement, his eyes are earnest, searching. All day in the writers’ room, he couldn’t even look at me. What’s changed?
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
I don’t reply.
‘I didn’t know what to think when I found out. I thought you lied to me…’ He shakes his head. ‘I made a mistake. I should never have accused you like I did.’
‘I never lied,’ I say.
‘I know.’
‘You should have known it straight away. Or talked to me, instead of just vanishing.’
His eyes close. ‘Yeah, I know.’
I’m torn. He’s made my life so hard these last days – refusing to listen, shutting me out with no way of reaching him. I’ve hardly slept. I’ve had to force myself to keep going, to put myself daily in that room where I’m so close to him but denied any access.
But I’ve missed his smile, his kisses. I’ve missed being loved by someone. With him gone and the stalemate between Joe and me at home, my world has been a cold, empty place where I don’t want to stay.
I feel the sting of night air on my skin, the heartbeat of the market muted here. It feels like I’m on the edge of a new season. All I have to do is leap…
‘Can you forgive me, Ottilie?’ Fraser’s voice is low, emotion-heavy.
I look up at him, aware that I’m holding my breath.
‘I just want to stop fighting.’ My voice is weary when I speak.
Fraser’s hand is warm when it closes around mine. ‘I just want you.’
I let his kiss take me, the shock of returning to his arms slowly setting in. We stay beneath the bridge for a long time, unhurried now. I don’t think about my friends back at the German bar, or Joe, or all of the challenges waiting for me at Ensign next year. This moment is mine.
Fraser’s smile is the most sparkling sight in the city tonight. He wears it as we rejoin the crowds, moving towards the Symphony Hall and the bars of Brindleyplace and Broad Street beyond. His arm is back around my shoulders and I lean into him as we walk. I’m dog-tired from emotion but this feels right. I don’t know what made him change his mind, but I’m so happy he did.
Beneath the black canopy of the gorgeous Library of Birmingham, a quartet of busking musicians is entertaining the milling crowds. I’m surrounded by smiles and laughter; everyone is here for a party.
Fraser kisses me, then offers his hand. ‘Dance with me?’
‘Here?’
‘Why not?’
‘People are watching.’
He shrugs as he pulls me to him. ‘So let them watch.’
The band begins to play a slow, acoustic version of ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’. Laughing, I let Fraser lead me to the space in front of them, blushing when I see the musicians’ smiles. He gathers me into his arms, my head resting near his heart, and we gently move. I close my eyes and let the music carry us. This is as close to perfect as I could have imagined. I am loved, held close and most of all, believed. Everything I could have wished for.
‘Happy?’ Fraser murmurs into my hair.
‘Yes.’ I pull my head back to look up into his lovely face. ‘What changed your mind?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes, to me.’
He kisses me. ‘I came to my senses.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Okay, I may have had some help.’ I feel him draw me even closer. ‘Joe told me the truth.’
Joe? What did he have to do with this? ‘What did he say?’
‘That he was wrong making me think it was still going on.’
‘Well, he was.’
Fraser smiles. ‘He’s a good friend for you, Otty. Bit of a git for misleading me like he did, but he cares about you.’
The news sits uncomfortably within me. ‘At least he apologised.’
‘And was honest, too. Takes a lot for a guy to admit he was wrong. He said it was a mistake, that it meant nothing to him. That’s what changed my mind.’
On Broad Street, a car horn splits the festive burr.
I force a smile and don’t protest when Fraser kisses me again. But my world just tilted.
It was a mistake. It meant nothing.
Don’t leave me, Otty.
What am I supposed to believe?
I arrive home in the early hours. Fraser wanted me to stay – and I was tempted – but I need to write this weekend. And all my stuff is at home. And all of this is an excuse because my head is a whirling, undignified mess I need to make sense of.
I can’t believe Joe apologised. What made him do that? We’ve barely spoken outside of work since I found out what he’d told Fraser. When he thought I was leaving he’d offered to put things right, but I never thought he’d do it. The glares I’ve seen him trading with Fraser across the writers’ room seemed to confirm that. I thought I was losing them both.
What made him take that step?
Does it change anything?
I sit on the sofa in our darkened living room, the otherworldly orange glow from the streetlight outside casting long shadows from the window. The stillness after the frenetic life of the market and the maelstrom of emotions with Fraser is startling. I should feel completely at peace. But I don’t.
I have so many questions. And no answers at all.
A rumble of noise sounds above me.
Joe’s awake.
I don’t even wait to consider going up there. I’m at the top of the stairs in a few strides. There’s a light from Joe’s room, his door not quite closed. I need to talk to him tonight or I’ll never sleep.
Gently, I knock on the door.
No answer.
‘Joe?’
There’s no reply, but the bed creaks. He’s definitely awake. I push the door open.
‘Joe? Are you awake?’
He’s lying very still, head turned away. His breathing is steady. I don’t know if he can hear me but I’m going to say it regardless.
‘I just wanted to say thank you. Fraser told me what you said.’ I wait for a response but he remains still beneath the sheets. ‘It made a difference. It made all the difference.’
‘I’m glad.’ His voice is soft, measured. He doesn’t turn to me, but at least I know he’s listening.
‘Can we go back to how we were, please?’ I ask, surprised by the way my voice cracks. ‘It’s been horrible without you.’
‘I’d like that.’
‘Okay. Tomorrow back to normal. Another bounce-back, eh? Night, Joe.’
I’m at the door when the sheets rustle behind me. ‘Otts?’
I turn. ‘Yeah?’
He’s propped up on one elbow, looking at me. He looks tired. ‘Does this mean you’re staying?’
I guess it does. Maybe it will be easier, knowing exactly where we stand.
‘Yes, I am.’
The weary smile is a glimpse of the old Joe I’ve missed. ‘Thank you.’
‘But you can’t hurt me like that again, Joe. Three strikes and you’re out.’
‘For a cricket fan that’s a very American reference.’
‘I mean it. You’re two down. You can’t hurt me again.’
His smile fades. ‘I won’t.’
As I walk from his room, I feel Joe watching me.
Chapter Fifty
JOE
Blank page.
And that bloody cursor, flashing away. The word-processing equivalent of a boss tapping his pen impatiently during your presentation.
Flash… flash… flash…
Come on… come on… come on!
Little flashy git.
If I could will words onto the page just by staring madly at the screen, my script would be written by now. And it would be brilliant.
Russell is waiting for the draft so we can have our consultation. Now the second season of Eye, Spy is almost complete he’ll be expecting it. I keep making the right noises when he asks how I’m getting on:
‘I’m loving the direction of it…’
‘It’s coming together…’
‘I think you’re going to love it…’
‘Some tweaks, but yeah, the whole thing’s there…’
All lies, pretty much. And it isn’t just me – I mean we all do it; so the irony is that while I’m trotting out those lines, I’m invariably saying them to writers who know it’s a load of bollocks, and nodding approvingly when they say it all back to me. But that’s the kind of weirdos we are.
I guess what sets us apart from people who tell you they could write if they wanted to is that eventually – after many coffees, bowls of cereal, biscuits, gin, dark nights of the soul, social media procrastination and endless moaning – we sit down and do the work.
Which is what I’m trying to do now.
I’m stuck on a line of dialogue one of my protagonists is saying in a scene that’s key to the whole show. Seth, a young and ambitious reporter in a twenty-four-hour newsroom, has been caught out for fabricating a story, the ramifications of which are dire. Political unrest in the country and a media hell-bent on dividing the nation mean that Seth’s convenient lie spreads like wildfire, inciting riots across the UK, with one person dead already. His colleague, brilliant intern Evie, has uncovered his lie, just as the newsroom is put on security lockdown due to violent clashes outside. The channel has steadfastly stood by the story, but to admit now it was based on a fabrication could put everyone inside in grave danger…
Sounds good, right? Except that’s where I’m stuck. I’ve tried all routes into it and it just refuses to yield.
SETH
I said it because I was scared.
Well, Seth, you win the prize for Most Obvious Statement. But what were you scared of?
SETH
I said it because I was scared.
I was scared of being found out…
Perfectly understandable. Not great telly.
SETH
I said it because I was scared.
I was scared of losing my job…
That’s a real fear – one that might be my own sneaking onto the page as my nerves about this project grow. But it’s not enough.
Maybe I should talk to Otty about this.
She’s out with Fraser today. It’s been almost two months since they got back together but it still hurts that she’s with him.
I gaze out of the kitchen window at the wintry landscape beyond. Snow refused to arrive during Christmas and New Year but now, in the last week of February, it’s dumped a whole month’s worth on Birmingham.
I have Otty back, but it isn’t like it was. There’s a bank of reserve that borders all our conversations and I know she’s put it there to prevent me hurting her again. I wish I could explain it all to her, show her exactly why I acted the way I did. Not just with Fraser, but way before – on the morning after the night we shouldn’t have had. Because I haven’t been honest with her about that. I said it meant nothing – and I repeated it to Fraser to make him take her back. But that night meant everything to me. Still does.
I said it because I was scared. Because I thought I’d already lost her…
The cursor flashes on my screen.
SETH
I said it because I was scared.
My breath stalls. Reaching for my keyboard, I start to type.
SETH
I said it because I was scared. Because I thought I’d already lost you. But it wasn’t a mistake, Evie. It was what I wanted.
I feel dizzy, possibilities firing through my brain. What would Evie say to that? I answer my own question:
EVIE
I don’t believe you. You said…
SETH
Self-preservation. Load of rubbish. It didn’t save me at all. You stole my heart.
EVIE
But you said you don’t remember…
SETH
I remember everything.
(beat)
I remember you.
And there’s the truth.
Every moment. Every touch. Every discovery. It plays in a relentless loop in my mind and has done since that night. I’ve lied to everyone, but most of all, I’ve lied to myself.
I stare at the words I’ve written, that spilled onto the page immediately. The flow I’ve been seeking is there when I’m talking about Otty. I love her. I’ve been in love with her for a long time. And the screen was where I finally admitted the truth.
Perhaps I am a writer after all.
Bleeding all over the page. Hemingway would be proud.
That’s when I know what I have to write about.
Scrap the newsroom and the riots. Find the story worth telling. So Otty becomes Evie and Joe becomes Seth. They share a house in a city suburb. Maybe they work together, too. One night, they make a mistake that shakes everything. And now Seth is in love with Evie.
Chapter Fifty-One
OTTY
‘Shh! Shh! It’s coming on!’
; ‘Turn the sound up, Joe, I can’t hear it.’
‘It is up.’
‘Okay, who has the remote?’
Rona chucks it across the writers’ room at me but it veers off course, skilfully plucked from the air by Jake, who raises both hands in triumph as my colleagues cheer.
We’ve gathered together to watch the first episode air of the drama we birthed in this room. I can hardly believe it.
Russell is here but he isn’t here. He threw the party for us but he’s now holed up in his office, all phones off, listening to Prince albums. It’s a ritual of his, Joe says, a superstition that if he doesn’t watch the first episode of a show, the gods of television will smile upon it. And Prince is for extra luck.
‘Here we go,’ Joe whispers to me. ‘You ready?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t feel my hands.’
He grins. ‘Then you’re ready.’
‘And. now on BBC One, a brand-new series for spring. Secrets, lies and spies. Maya Marple and Mac Finan star in the new original drama by Russell Styles… Eye, Spy.’
This is it. Instinctively, we reach out and grab each other’s hands, wide-eyed and watching as the opening bars of Michael Price’s haunting theme play and the titles roll.
I don’t think any of us breathes for the next hour. It’s the most surreal feeling to know exactly what a character is about to say before they say it. There are edits, of course, and some of the script isn’t in the finished episode, but all of us in the room hear lines we dragged out of thin air as we worked around the clock to create this. Some of the characters are exactly as we imagined, others so different it presents a fresh take on what we wrote. Occasionally an actor will change a word, causing a chorus of ‘Ad-Libber!’ to rise from us all. But I love that the cast have made our words work. Their interpretation takes the script to a whole new level. It’s nerve-wracking and breathtaking and by the time the last scene arrives, we’re a snivelling, whooping, exhausted mess.
‘Here’s your line, Rona,’ Fraser yells.
Wilson, played by the magnificently bearded Rory Wilton, slowly lowers the phone from the call he’s just taken and looks straight into camera. ‘We’ve been compromised. Control just confirmed data from our secure systems has been leaked on the Dark Web. There is a mole in this unit.’
Our Story: the new heartwarming and emotional romance fiction book from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Take A Look At Me Now Page 26