Good at Games

by Jill Mansell

  * * *

  When Suzy reached Harry’s room, loaded down with men’s magazines and Kit Kat bars, the effect was spoiled somewhat by the pile of duplicate magazines already littering the bed and the mountain of Kit Kats heaped on top of his locker.

  “I know. Mad, isn’t it?” Harry grinned as he kissed her. “The local radio station phoned up yesterday wanting to dedicate a record to me. When they asked the receptionist what my favorite track was, she thought they said treat. We’ve had nonstop deliveries of Kit Kats ever since.”

  “Should have said tins of beluga caviar.” Suzy flipped through one of the magazines he’d been looking at. “Where did these come from?”

  “One of the staff nurses brought them in for me.”

  “One of the pretty staff nurses?”

  Harry winked. “Well, I suppose you could call him pretty.”

  Next moment, Suzy’s fingers froze. Incredibly, there was a photograph of Leo in the magazine she’d been idly flipping through.

  ELIGIBLE BLOKES—IT’S A TOUGH JOB, BUT SOMEBODY’S GOTTA DO IT!

  That was the headline, followed by a series of photos and mini features detailing the histories, lifestyles, and sexual conquests of various British businessmen, sporting heroes, and media types. Dying to read the piece about Leo, Suzy glanced up and saw the expression on Harry’s face.

  Well, maybe now wasn’t the moment.

  Instead, she closed the magazine and said casually, “His new restaurant opens tonight.”

  “I know.” Harry nodded, then clasped her hand. “I thought you might have gone along.”

  Pride wouldn’t allow Suzy to admit the truth. Instead, choosing her words with care, she said, “I was invited.”

  Harry’s grip on her hand tightened, causing Suzy to flinch. That was the trouble with great big engagement rings—when someone gave your fingers a squeeze like that, those glittering diamonds really hurt.

  “Thanks,” murmured Harry, his electric-blue eyes gazing into hers.

  “Thanks for what?”

  He smiled lovingly at Suzy. “You know what I’m talking about. I’m glad you didn’t go.”

  He squeezed again, bringing tears to Suzy’s eyes.

  Ooh, ouch.

  Chapter 29

  At the Alpha Bar, Leo drew Lucille to one side, away from the crush of chattering guests.

  “No Suzy?”

  “She’s visiting Harry.” Lucille diplomatically didn’t mention Suzy’s eruption into orbit upon discovering that she hadn’t been properly invited to tonight’s launch party. Instead, gesturing around the packed restaurant and bar, she said, “This place is fantastic. It’s going to do brilliantly.”

  “Especially once we get our resident singer.” Leo smiled down at her. “How are you fixed for Wednesday and Friday evenings? We can make it a regular thing, two nights a week.”

  Lucille’s stomach did a back flip. Her initial reaction, to jump for joy and stammer out her thanks, died in an instant. I’m not going to put myself through that anymore, remember?

  From now on she had to forget the dreams that were never going to come true, and concentrate on being practical instead.

  Sensible.

  Realistic.

  And with a regular wage coming in.

  Lucille took a deep breath. “It’s really nice of you to offer, but I’d be more interested in waitressing five nights a week.”

  Leo looked shocked. “Why?”

  “I’m putting the other stuff behind me.” Biting her lip, Lucille prayed her voice wasn’t about to wobble. “Giving it up as a bad job.”

  For once, Leo was lost for words. He knew how much Lucille’s singing meant to her; it was what she lived for.

  “I don’t understand. Look at you.” He indicated Lucille’s figure, encased in a caramel silk cropped top and matching long skirt split to the thigh. Her beaded braids were fastened up in a topknot, emphasizing her huge brown eyes and swanlike neck. “You’ve got the face, the body, everything it takes—”

  “Except the talent,” Lucille said simply.

  Leo raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “That’s not true. Your voice is amazing.”

  “Thousands and thousands of people have a great singing voice. If you want people to sit up and take notice, you need a great song.” Lucille fiddled with the clasp of her clutch bag, clicking it open and shut, open and shut as she spoke, “I always thought that one day, maybe I’d write one. Now I know it’s not going to happen.”

  “How?” Leo demanded. “How can you know that?”

  “Someone gave me their honest opinion.”

  “Who?”

  Lucille shrugged. Click click, click click. “Someone I trust.”

  “Not Suzy, I hope.” Horrified, Leo said, “Oh God, tell me it wasn’t Suzy!”

  The expression on his face was a scream. Lucille started to laugh.

  “I promise you it wasn’t Suzy. Have you ever heard her singing?”

  “I’ve heard about it.” Leo shuddered briefly. “And I had a narrow escape once, in her car. Luckily, she had Riverdance in the tape deck.”

  “Luckier than you think,” Lucille said with feeling. “Suzy’s one of the few people who can and does sing along to Riverdance.”

  Leo realized she was trying to steer him away from the subject at hand.

  “So who told you to give up the music?”

  “Someone who knows what they’re talking about.” Lucille straightened her shoulders and forced a bright smile. “Jaz Dreyfuss.”

  Leo sighed, because Jaz clearly did know what he was talking about.

  Still, what kind of bastard would actually come out and say it?

  “Don’t look like that,” said Lucille. “I asked him to be honest. I don’t want to spend the next fifty years waiting for something that’s never going to happen.”

  “You’d rather be a waitress instead.” Leo’s attention was caught by Gabriella frantically beckoning across the room; there were people over at the bar waiting to speak to him. “Look, we’ll have to discuss this tomorrow,” he told Lucille. “If that’s what you really want, then fine, we’ll sort something out.” He went on evenly, “But I still think Jaz Dreyfuss could have kept his expert opinion to himself.”

  “Don’t blame him,” Lucille insisted.

  Leo wondered how she was really feeling, beneath the brave exterior.

  “I don’t blame him,” he said. “I just wonder how he can sleep at night.”

  * * *

  Jaz couldn’t sleep. By three o’clock in the morning he’d given up trying. Next to him, Celeste was out for the count, curled up like a dormouse on her side of the king-size bed with her left hand clutching her right shoulder. When Jaz pushed back the duvet she didn’t even stir.

  Maybe a swim would help.

  Pulling on his toweling robe, Jaz padded downstairs. Yes, a swim, that might do it. Forty lengths of the pool should be enough to stop the endless churning in his brain. Maybe sixty lengths—that would tire him out physically and force him to sleep.

  Eighty lengths later Jaz eased himself out of the dimly lit pool, his mind still racing unstoppably.

  Jesus, it was like being back in the band, realizing that for a laugh someone had slipped speed into your drink.

  Except this time drugs had nothing to do with it.

  Instead—Jaz ruefully acknowledged—the cause was Lucille.

  Naked and dripping, he gazed down at the orange lights shimmering up at him from the bottom of the pool.

  The house was utterly silent.

  To his left stood the door that would lead him back up the stairs to bed.

  Directly ahead of him lay the pool—of course—into which he could always dive once more. Another eighty lengths would surely do the trick. Christ, thought Jaz, pushing both hands throug
h his wet hair and quailing at the prospect. At this rate he’d end up swimming the equivalent of the English Channel in one night.

  And then there was the door on the right. All he had to do was make his way along the narrow corridor running parallel to the pool room and open the heavy wooden door at the end of it.

  It was what his brain was urging him to do, Jaz realized. It was what he wanted to do. But he was terrified, in case it was a trick. What if his brain was only doing it because it was desperate for a drink?

  This was crazy, crazy. Jaz gritted his teeth. Music was the last hurdle. OK, he’d managed three and a half years. Which was good, of course it was, particularly when you took into account the fact that if he hadn’t stopped drinking he’d surely have been dead by now.

  But music was his life, it mattered more to him than almost anything. And without it, he knew he was leading an unfulfilled existence. His days were dreadfully empty.

  Which was why, needless to say, he spent so much time swimming up and down this bloody boring pool.

  “Right,” Jaz said aloud, dragging his toweling robe around him once more. “Let’s go.”

  Because if he didn’t, basically, it meant the drink was still ruining his life.

  As he made his way along the narrow corridor, it occurred to Jaz that the recording studio might not even be there anymore. It had been three and a half years, after all, since he had last visited it.

  For all he knew, Maeve could have turfed out all that expensive equipment and transformed it into a launderette.

  * * *

  She hadn’t. It was still there, just the same, exactly as Jaz remembered it.

  His hands trembled as he closed the soundproofed door behind him. His heart crashing against his rib cage, his throat automatically craving bourbon, Jaz sat down on a swivel chair in front of the mixing desk.

  Some part of him had half expected the studio to resemble Miss Havisham’s dining room in Great Expectations, with inches of dust everywhere and spectacular cobwebs festooned like curtains from every mike stand.

  It wasn’t a bit like that, of course. Without once mentioning that she ever ventured down here, Maeve had kept the place spotless. Like a mother whose son has left home, Jaz thought with a brief smile, lovingly keeping his bedroom clean and ready for him in case one day he should decide to move back.

  What would any of them do without Maeve?

  The urge to get out of the room was powerful, but he’d come this far, and Jaz was damned if he was going to give up now. Forcing himself to stay put, he gazed fixedly at the mixing desk. Next, he ran his fingers over the controls.

  He was really sweating now. The connection between songwriting and hard drinking was so powerful he could almost taste the alcohol in his throat. He longed to reach out for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s he’d always kept right there, on the edge of the console, within uncoordinated groping distance of his left hand.

  He’d never written so much as a single note sober.

  Christ, more to the point, he couldn’t remember ever writing a single note. For all he knew, someone else could have written every song in his entire back catalog.

  Maeve, perhaps.

  OK, maybe not.

  Jaz sat there for another hour and a half, refamiliarizing himself with the control desk. He felt like a veteran pilot climbing back into the cockpit of a Spitfire fifty years after the end of World War II.

  In theory he could probably still fly the plane, but he didn’t try.

  Just imagining flying the plane was enough.

  When the studio door was pushed open, Jaz didn’t hear it. Without touching anything, he was busy running through the process of laying down a track in his mind.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Celeste’s pale blue eyes were wide with disbelief. She was wearing her Rugrats T-shirt as a nightie and her baby fine white-blond hair stuck out all over her head like a dandelion puff.

  “What?” Startled, Jaz came crashing back to the present. His own hair was drenched in perspiration and for a split second he didn’t seem to register who was standing in the doorway. Then his expression cleared. “Oh, nothing. How did you know where I was?”

  “The light was on.” Celeste pointed to the glowing red recording light, outside the studio door.

  Jaz nodded.

  “What time is it?”

  “Six o’clock. I woke up and you weren’t there.” She held out her thin arms and moved toward him, her bare feet making no sound against the soft spongy floor.

  “I’m OK,” said Jaz. “Really I am.”

  Celeste shook her head. She hated this room with its walls lined with weird corrugated foam. There were no windows. The smell of latex made her feel sick. Most of all, she didn’t want Jaz to start coming down here again.

  “You look terrible,” Celeste announced. “This isn’t doing you any good. Look at you, sweating and shaking. I bet you wanted a drink.”

  “Maybe I did,” Jaz said quietly. “But I didn’t have one.”

  “We’re in this together, don’t forget.” Celeste gave him a sorrowful look. “It’s not just yourself you’ll kill if you start drinking again. If you relapse, I’ll relapse. And if that happens I could be dead in a couple of months.”

  “I’m not going to relapse.” Jaz’s knuckles were white as he gripped the sides of his chair.

  “You don’t want to relapse,” Celeste whispered, “but you can’t guarantee it, can you?” She let out a sob and threw her arms around him. “Oh, please, don’t do this. It’s not worth it! We could both be dead by Christmas!”

  She was hugging him tightly, her head buried against his bare chest. Jaz breathed in the smell of the Organics shampoo in her hair and gazed down at the fragile exposed nape of her neck.

  Celeste was so vulnerable, and he owed her so much.

  “OK, OK. I’m sorry.” He patted her shaking shoulders and eased her to her feet. “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

  Chapter 30

  By Friday morning Martin was approaching emotional meltdown. Nancy, true to her word, had changed the locks on their house and refused to open the door when he’d gone around there on Wednesday evening. She was also flatly refusing to speak to him or even listen to his protestations of innocence. Any more of that racket out in the street, their neighbor had brusquely informed Martin, and he’d be arrested for harassment and breach of the peace.

  Which was bad news for Suzy in the office, because it meant she had to listen to it instead.

  “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair,” Martin roared, banging his desk and taking out another cigarette because Suzy had just grabbed the last one out of his hand and stubbed it out.

  “So you keep telling us. And if you light that,” Suzy warned him, “I’ll stub it out on your head.”

  “But you don’t understand! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “Apart from have an affair, you mean.”

  “I DID NOT HAVE AN AFFAIR,” bellowed Martin, almost apoplectic with rage because nobody would believe him. “I go out with the guys, we have a bit of a laugh… OK, girls chat us up sometimes, and we might buy them a couple of drinks, but that’s as far as it goes, I swear. Oh shit, it’s not fair. It’s just not bloody fair.”

  Denied his cigarette, Martin was now venting his rage on the desk instead, kicking it to emphasize every word. He looked dreadful too. Sleeping on the living room floor of his best friend’s apartment was clearly taking its toll. His hair was unkempt, there were dark shadows under his eyes, and his suit was crumpled, as if he’d just pulled it out of one of the black trash bags and thrown it on.

  Suzy, about to make some sarcastic remark about his appearance and the diminishing likelihood of him being chatted up in the future if he didn’t sort himself out fast, was appalled to realize there were tears brimming in Martin’s eyes. In
the nick of time she closed her mouth and turned away. Irritated by his boring ramblings, she had also been readying herself to tell Martin that he was going to have to pull himself together if he wanted to keep his job. Going around scruffily dressed, reeking of alcohol and incapable of holding any form of conversation unless it concerned Nancy wasn’t going to sell a huge number of properties.

  But this was more than she could cope with. Suzy, risking a quick glance over her shoulder, saw Martin’s Adam’s apple bobbing up and down alarmingly.

  Oh, help.

  Girls cried all the time, girls were easy. When their boyfriends chucked them they had a jolly good blub about it, you gave them a massive hug, and before you knew it, you were both ensconced in the nearest wine bar happily downing bottles of chilled Frascati and swapping what-a-bastard stories.

  But men…men were different. Men weren’t supposed to cry. When they did, Suzy found it downright alarming.

  Doubly so, when the reason the man was crying was that his wife had kicked him out because he’d been such a bastard.

  Up until now, Suzy had thought Martin was simply furious because his wife had accused him—whether rightly or wrongly—of having an affair.

  Now, for the first time, she realized he was terrified he may have lost Nancy for good.

  Softening instantly, Suzy waited until Martin had recovered his composure.

  Well, some of it.

  Maybe 40 percent.

  “OK, what have you got scheduled this morning?”

  Usually scarily on the ball when it came to appointments, it was a measure of Martin’s troubled state that he had to resort to his diary.

  “Um, Mr. and Mrs. Newman, an appraisal on their garden apartment. Fourteen, Victoria Square, ten thirty.”

  “Right, I’ll see to that.” Suzy scribbled it down. “You take a couple of hours off. Go home, have a shower, change your clothes… When did you last eat?” Martin looked bewildered.

  “Can’t remember. Kebab on Wednesday?”

  “In that case, have some breakfast.”