by Jill Mansell
Plus, you were expected to applaud until your hands were sore.
Orla, who usually adored every minute, realized that she would only enjoy it this time if Christie Carson was on their table.
‘Ready, darling?’ Jovially, JD held out his arm. ‘Let's go and find the rest of our gang.’
Of course, they weren’t on the same table. Not even close. From her position at the back of the vast room, Orla saw that Christie Carson was occupying one of the tables close to the stage at the front. If she tilted her chair slightly, she had a clear view of him chatting easily to the woman on his left, a flirtatious actress who had just published her autobiography.
Wishing he could be chatting easily to her, Orla flushed as he glanced over at that moment and caught her looking at him. Hastily filling her glass, she beamed as Millie and Con joined them. Laughing and teasing each other, they really did make a perfect couple.
Pleased with herself, Orla said, ‘How d’you like your surprise?’
‘Brilliant. How do you like yours?’ Millie beamed across at her. ‘I couldn’t believe it was actually him!’
‘Me neither.’ It was the kind of face a fifteen-year-old might pull, but Orla pulled it anyway. It was a yeeuch face, designed to prove that you loathed someone and definitely didn’t secretly fancy them rotten.
‘I thought they’d have to call security to drag you off him.’ Con winked. ‘Maybe even an ambulance.’
Modestly, Orla fluttered her hands. ‘Oh, all in good time.’
‘But how did he react when you had a go at him?’ Millie was dying to hear all about it; to her frustration, Con hadn’t allowed her within eavesdropping distance. ‘What made him write that horrible review?’
‘Haven’t asked him yet.’ Orla leaned back, allowing the waiter to serve their first course.
Millie was astounded. ‘Why not?’
‘No hurry. We’ve got all evening.’ Once the awards had been dished out, the business of serious drinking and networking would begin. Orla could hardly wait. Aloud she added casually, ‘Let him sweat.’
‘She's playing it like a pro,’ boasted JD. ‘Reel him in, reel him in, then—bam. That lad won’t know what's hit him.’
Her starter looked delicious but Orla's stomach was in too much of a tangle for her to eat it. Glancing across the room, she saw that Christie Carson had—oh God—caught her out once more.
Never mind him, thought Orla. What's hit me!
As if she didn’t know.
‘Are you okay?’ said Millie.
Picking up her fork, Orla smiled brightly.
‘I’m fine!’
For the next hour she forced herself to join in. Conversation whirled around the table and Orla bantered along with the best of them. Dinner came and went. As their plates were efficiently cleared, the speeches began. The first awards were announced and the winners mounted the stage to receive their trophies.
When her bladder began to protest at the unfairness of having been filled with wine and squashed within the confines of such a tight-fitting dress, Orla discreetly excused herself. The compere was announcing the shortlist for Best Travel Guide as she slipped out to the loo.
Five minutes later she was in the process of carefully re-powdering her nose in the gilded mirror above the basin when the door swung open and Christie Carson sauntered in.
Not walked. Sauntered.
Orla, her heart clanging away like a school bell, promptly doused her nose with far too much loose powder.
‘Wrong loo. This is the ladies.’’
‘Right loo.’ He broke into a slow, mesmerizing smile. ‘It's actually a lady I’m looking for.’
Clang clang clang, went Orla's heart, clang clanggg.
Hastily brushing Estée Lauder's finest off her nose, she said, ‘Are you following me?’
Christie Carson looked around the otherwise deserted cloakroom, then back at her.
‘I’d say that's highly likely, wouldn’t you?’
At least he’d allowed her enough time to go to the loo first. It showed he was thoughtful. Imagine if he’d interrupted her in mid-pee.
Aloud, Orla said, ‘Why?’
‘I missed you.’ His tone good-humored, he moved closer. ‘I was lonely without you. I didn’t want to wait another whole hour before talking to you again.’
Phew.
‘Why not?’
‘Because sometimes you meet someone and… you just know.’ Christie paused, then shrugged. ‘Don’t you agree?’
YES,YES!
‘I’m not sure. Know what?’
‘I haven’t the foggiest. You just… know.’
He was Irish. It was blarney time. With those eyes and that lilting accent he could say pretty much anything and get away with it.
‘Why did you write that review?’ Helplessly, Orla blurted the words out.
‘Why? Because it was the truth.’ He faced her without flinching. ‘Come on, you already knew that. There you were, churning out rubbish without even thinking about it. The lazy person's way to make a few million. You’re actually a much better writer than you give yourself credit for. All you needed was a good shake-up. Look at me honestly and tell me I’m not right.’
‘That review was way below the belt. You have no idea how much it hurt me.’
‘It had to, if it was going to do its job. Tell me what you’re working on now.’
‘Something completely different.’ Recklessly Orla added, ‘Something that's going to knock your socks off.’
Not very modest, perhaps. But it was the truth.
Christie's eyes crinkled at the corners.
‘See? It did the trick.’
As he moved closer still, Orla caught a waft of aftershave and cigarettes. All of a sudden, she discovered, the smell of smoke was no longer a turnoff.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I haven’t thanked you yet, for the nice things you wrote about me. I must say,’ he flashed a self-deprecating smile, ‘I nearly wet my pants and ran away when I heard you were reviewing my book.’
‘I didn’t write nice things about you. Only your work.’ He had the most beautiful mouth Orla had ever seen. Dimly, she heard cheering and wild applause drifting through from the ceremony in the Nine Kings’ Suite.
‘I thought you might retaliate.’
‘I did. If you give me your address I’ll send you copies of the first drafts I put together. There are two hundred and eighteen of them.’ She forced herself to stop watching his magical mouth. ‘But publicly, we decided to be gracious. Rise above it. Put you to shame.’
‘And you did. Still, thank you anyway.’ Closing the distance between them, Christie raised Orla's mouth to his and kissed her.
And kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her.
Orla, almost dissolving on the spot, gasped, ‘I don’t believe this. Anyone could come in here. You have to stop it now.’
Embarrassingly, her fingers were still entwined in his silky dark curls as she panted out the words. They didn’t appear to want to let go.
‘I’ve got a better idea.’ Smiling, Christie led her towards one of the open cubicles. As he drew her inside and kicked the door shut, another thunderous burst of applause rang out, accompanied by laughter and raucous whoops of delight.
‘Just so long as this loo isn’t bugged,’ Orla shuddered with anticipation as his hand skillfully unzipped her mermaid dress, ‘and they aren’t all out there applauding us.’
Chapter 56
ON THE ONE HAND, Millie felt it was probably just as well Orla was missing out on this part of the ceremony. On the other hand, she had been gone from their table for quite some time.
Almost fifteen minutes now.
Pushing her chair back, Millie leaned over to Con and said, ‘I’m just going to find out where Orla's got to. Check she's okay.’
The ladies’ loo appeared to be deserted when Millie pushed through the door. Pausing on the threshold, she wondered if Orla had been feeling ill and had made h
er way back to her room.
Then, hearing a slight noise, she saw that one of the cubicle doors was locked.
‘Orla?’
No reply.
‘Orla?’
Nothing. Had she fainted?
‘Orla, is that you? Are you okay?’
A moment later, sounding distinctly strange, Orla's voice drifted out from the closed cubicle.
‘It's okay, I’m fine. I’ll be… um, out in a minute.’
Millie frowned.
‘You don’t sound fine. You’ve been gone for ages. What's up?’
This time she heard hastily stifled laughter. Followed by more shuffling around. Instinctively, Millie crouched down and peered through the narrow gap between the cubicle door and the green and black marble tiled floor.
Since she wasn’t entirely stupid, she had actually worked it out for herself by now.
‘Orla. Bad news. You’ve grown a couple of extra legs.’
More muffled laughter, this time bordering on the hysterical.
‘Damn,’ Orla gasped finally. ‘Two extra legs. I hate it when that happens.’
‘And I hate to be an old killjoy, but any minute now somebody else is going to walk in here and then you’ll be stuck. I really think you’d better come out now.’
So that I can see who you’re in there with, you shameless tramp!
At that moment, in the corridor outside, an agitated male voice could clearly be heard shouting, ‘Has anyone seen Christie Carson?’
Inside the cubicle, much giggling and rustling accompanied the sound of a zip being done up. Then the door of the cubicle was unlocked and opened.
‘… so you see, that's the basic principle of the flushing mechanism, it's all in the S-bend,’ Christie Carson was earnestly explaining as he emerged behind a smirking, pink-cheeked Orla. Apparently surprised to find Millie there, he said, ‘Oh, hi!’
‘You may want to tuck the back of your shirt in before you go up on stage,’ Millie solemnly informed him. ‘They’re waiting to present you with the award for Author of the Year.’
‘Really?’ Christie Carson grinned. ‘That's the second-nicest thing to happen to me all night.’
After the ceremony was over, the serious business of drinking, table-hopping, celebrating, and gossiping began in earnest. Those who had been nominated for awards and failed to win them were commiserated with and told they deserved to have won. The winners were subjected to endless photos and interviews. Champagne bottles proliferated on the tables. JD was off boasting to journalists of his latest acquisition, a twenty-five-year-old milkman who had written a swords-and-sorcery blockbuster set to trounce Harry Potter into the ground.
‘It's his way of coping with Mum's illness,’ Con explained, as he refilled Millie's glass. Having no need to network, they were finally alone at their table.
‘How is she?’
‘Not so bad. At home, resting. She insisted on Dad coming tonight.’ He paused. ‘She's not in any pain, which is a relief.’
‘And how are things with you?’
He smiled and sat back in his chair.
‘Good. I’ve met someone.’
Delighted, Millie clutched his arm.
‘That's fantastic! Is it serious?’
‘Who can tell? Still, we’re enjoying ourselves. He's a lighting technician. And his name's Joe, which is handy. My mother thinks it's short for Josephine. But he understands my situation, why we need to be discreet. We’ll just have to see how things go.’ He paused. ‘How about you?’
Millie almost kissed him—she’d thought he’d never ask. Con was the only person she could truly confide in. Within minutes she had blurted out the whole depressing story.
‘The one I talked to on the beach.’ Con nodded, recalling the day after Orla's party. ‘We tried to get a look at that tattoo of yours. Has it occurred to you that maybe your tattoo is jinxing your love life? If you’d have let us see it, everything might have turned out differently for you and Hugh. You could be blissfully happy together now. Like when a Catholic confesses his sins. Maybe if you showed me…’
He was laughing at her, his warm hand inching up her leg as he spoke.
‘Sshh.’ Millie slapped the hand away as it reached the hem of her dress. ‘Change the subject. Here comes Orla.’
Orla, back from her table-hopping, was grinning uncontrollably. Her green eyes were bright. If she’d had a tail, it would be a bushy one. She’d never looked happier or more vibrant in her life.
‘Just came over to say good night. I’m absolutely shattered. Phew, what an evening—I can hardly stand up!’
‘What a surprise,’ Con murmured, nearly under his breath.
‘Oh! She told you!’ Orla pretended to be indignant.
‘All that unaccustomed activity in a confined space, bound to take it out of you,’ he teased. ‘Of course she told me.’
‘And tomorrow morning it’ll be my turn—I’ll want to hear everything you’ve been up to.’ Still incapable of wiping the idiotic grin off her face, Orla pointed sternly—well, fairly sternly—at Millie. To Con, she added, ‘And it had better be good.’
‘What time would you like me to wake you?’ Millie innocently inquired. ‘Six? Seven?’
‘Heavens no. I told you, I’m absolutely exhausted—desperate to catch up on some sleep!’ Having gaily kissed them both, Orla feigned a huge yawn.
‘The thing is, I’ve had my wallet nicked and I can’t get home,’ said Con. ‘You couldn’t put me up in your room for the night, could you? I’d be no trouble, I promise.’
‘Sorry, no.’ Orla smiled sweetly at him. ‘Absolutely not.’
Christie Carson said his good-byes and slipped discreetly out of the room shortly afterwards. He winked at Millie as he left.
Millie, who had been timing him, murmured, ‘Five minutes and twenty-three seconds. I won.’
‘You can tell he's not gay,’ Con sighed. ‘If he were, he’d have been out of here and up those stairs in no time flat.’ Shaking his dark head he added, ‘I hope he isn’t going to break Orla's heart.’
‘Don’t be such a pessimist. She's having the time of her life.’ Sitting back, Millie twirled the stem of her champagne glass. ‘Crikey, after putting up with Giles all these years she deserves it.’
‘Like discovering Cottonelle after a lifetime of that awful scratchy, hard stuff.’
Millie hiccuped.
‘I don’t know how flattered Orla's going to be when she hears you’ve been comparing her lovers to loo rolls.’
‘I’m tired. Blame it on the jet-lag.’ Con stretched out and yawned, revealing a couple of gold fillings. ‘God, sorry, it's just caught up with me.’
He yawned again. Unlike Orla, he really was shattered.
‘You’ve done your duty.’ Millie patted his arm. ‘Time you went home.’
‘What about you? Will you be okay?’
Across the crowded room Noel Blackwall was glancing over, the determined look on his face indicating—yuk—that he hadn’t given up on her yet.
‘I’ll be fine, I’m pretty tired myself,’ Millie lied. ‘I think I’ll call it a night.’
In her room, she changed out of the Dolce & Gabbana dress and into her second-best nightie. (No tatty old T-shirts for the Royal Lancaster, thank you very much.) Since it was only just gone midnight and she wasn’t sleepy at all, Millie arranged herself comfortably on the bed with the TV remote control, one of the tooth mugs from the bathroom, and the almost-full bottle of champagne she had brought upstairs with her because it had looked so lonely all on its own on their empty table. Unsure whether or not this counted as stealing—and keen not to be arrested and forced to spend the rest of her long weekend in some smelly police cell—she had therefore stolen it discreetly, smuggling it out of the Nine Kings’ Suite clasped between her hip and her handbag. The bottle, of course, had slipped sideways as she was stepping into the lift. By the time Millie had managed to straighten it back up, champagne was dripping and fizzing down the fr
ont of her dress. At least she’ d been fast enough to catch the bottle before any more champagne could spill out. There was still plenty left.
Crikey, thought Millie as she filled her tooth mug, with reflexes like that I should be wicket-keeping for England.
Flip, flip, flip.
Glug.
Flip, flip, flip.
Slurp.
Alternately zapping through the many cable channels and guzzling Veuve Clicquot—lukewarm, but she’d never have got away with smuggling up an ice bucket—Millie watched a couple of minutes of some dire sci-fi drama before switching off the TV. There were more important things to think about, like what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
Relocate to London?
Get a job in a travel agency?
Set about finding herself a new man, one she could fall in love with who might even love her in return?
In other words, move on?
Millie waggled her toes, briefly admiring the silvery-bronze polish on them. She gazed at the blank TV screen, then took another slurp of champagne and felt the bubbles pop on her tongue.
As the alcohol began to swirl through her bloodstream, she thought how nice it would be to hear Hugh's voice now, the light, sexy, amused drawl he used when he was teasing her.
The voice that made her shiver with longing.
The voice she craved, almost like a drug.
Ridiculous. Vigorously, Millie shook her head. No, no, no. It's almost half past midnight. You can’t possibly ring him now. Not unless you’ve got a jolly good reason.
Oh, but that was the trouble with phones, they were just too tempting. They were… there.
A hundred years ago, if you were in London and you experienced a sudden, violent urge to speak to someone in, say, Cornwall, you had to jump on to a horse and gallop the three hundred-odd miles in order to do so. It probably took more than a week before you were able to reach the person and say what you wanted to say.
Millie, snatching up the phone and jabbing out the numbers, decided that it was all Alexander Graham Bell's fault. If he’d stuck to stamp collecting or train-spotting, she wouldn’t be able to do this now.