‘You’re kidding me?’ Will had already started talking when Jayne ran up behind him, wrapping his coat around his shoulders. He was still just wearing the white t-shirt that he’d filmed in and it was one of those sunny but deceptively sub-zero December days. ‘That’s crazy!’ His voice had risen loud enough to garner a few glares from people hurrying past them on the busy street.
‘What?’ Jayne mouthed, unable to decipher his intonation as to whether it was good crazy or bad crazy. She really hoped Michaela wasn’t calling to say that the show had changed their minds and that they didn’t want him any more. He’d get over the disappointment, she was sure of that, but he was so excited about this new adventure and his confidence would take a bit of a beating if he was effectively a one-hit wonder.
‘Okay, so that’s Thursday at eleven, and then where is the show on Friday night? And then Saturday afternoon. What time is that? Can you email all that to me, I’m outside a bar now and don’t have a pen … What do you mean? A bar … No, I’m on the street … I’m with my friends celebrating the show … Okay, okay, I’m going back inside now. Yes, okay, bye.’ He pressed the end button and stared at Jayne in shock.
‘What? Say something? That sounded good, didn’t it? Was it good news? What did she say?’
‘Uh, yes,’ he started laughing, and ran a hand through his newly cropped hair. ‘Uh, very good news. The producer wants me to do another slot on Thursday on Good Morning. Apparently they got loads of calls after the show and they want me to do all the cookery slots in the run-up to Christmas, so twice a week for the next three weeks, and they’ll see about putting me on a contract in the New Year. Then I’ve also got a guest spot on a Channel Four talk show on Friday night – you know, the one that we saw when we were at my dad’s – and then on Saturday afternoon I’m one of the guests on the lunchtime show on Radio 2.’ He stopped, his right hand still in his hair, ‘Jesus, Jayne. How is this happening?’
Jayne went up on her tiptoes and gently kissed his nose. ‘You deserve it, baby. You work so hard and you’re awesome and now everyone is going to know just how awesome.’
It was as though the kiss suddenly snapped Will back into the moment and he started shuffling Jayne backwards into the bar, being careful to avoid the throngs of single-minded Christmas shoppers and lost-looking tourists laden down with yellow Selfridges bags. ‘Michaela flipped out when I said that we were standing on a pavement outside a bar, she said that she doesn’t want to see drunk shots of me with a bar in the background, so let’s go back inside.’
‘You’re not drunk. Well, not yet – wait ‘til I order some jaeger bombs. Oooo, I should get a tray of shot glasses filled with water and then you can text her a video of you downing all of them. Then let’s see her really flip out.’
‘You are a wicked woman, Jayne Brady, and I love you, but this early in my career, I think I need her on my side, so let’s save the histrionics for April Fool’s Day, okay?’
‘Every party needs a party pooper.’
‘Heehee, you just said pooper,’ mocked a voice that came from behind her.
‘Alright, Dirk?’ they both uttered as a cheap shiny suit slunk past them into the bar.
‘Can you believe this?’ Rachel slurred to Jayne, after a couple of women had peeled off from their office lunch and had asked Will for a picture with them.
‘Not really,’ Jayne admitted, ‘it’s incredible to think that two weeks ago we were sitting in the deli talking about doing a stock-take and now we’re in a posh bar in Covent Garden celebrating the launch of his TV career.’
‘No, I mean, can you believe there are women who want a photo of him.’
‘Oi! That’s my boyfriend you’re talking about!’
‘I know, but it’s smelly old Billy, with his spotty face and greasy hair.’
‘Rach, take a look. That Billy’s well and truly gone. And anyway, he never had that many spots. Although, admittedly he may once have been a stranger to the shampoo bottle. But he’s very hygienic now.’
‘Will Scarlet, gorgeous and hygienic. What a combination,’ Abi chimed in at the tail end of the conversation; despite arriving two hours after everyone else she had played catch-up with an impressive dexterity. ‘Every mother’s dream.’
‘You’re right there. Even our own mother has phoned. Eighteen months of silence, then her daughter’s boyfriend’s on the telly and suddenly she’s come over all maternal, gushing over her ‘talented family’.’ Rachel said, rolling her eyes.
‘I thought it was nice that she called.’ Jayne said frowning. Admittedly her mother’s timing was a little suspect, calling only a few minutes after Will had gone off air. Jayne had tried to call her quite a few times in the months since the Devon trip, but she never picked up, nor returned her messages. She didn’t want Rachel to be right, that Crystal’s out-of-the-blue call was driven by a desire to share whatever limelight was going, rather than wanting to reconnect. Jayne shrugged. ‘Whatever her motives, it shows she was thinking of us.’
‘Of herself.’
‘Of us. And Stanley even came on the phone wanting to pass on his congratulations.’
‘Poor sod. How he’s still alive I’ve got no idea.’
‘What, you don’t think your mum’s trying to poison him?’ Abi hissed incredulously, her straw dangling between her open lips.
‘No, you moron, although I’m sure it’s crossed her mind. I meant she’s probably trying to shag him into an early grave.’
‘Everyone has to go somehow. S’better than cancer,’ Dirk cut in, slurring. ‘Abi, gettus another drink, sbarman won’t serve me.’
‘Because you’re being a nuisance. Just go home, Dirk.’ Abi turned her body away from him slightly and shook her head apologetically at Jayne and Rachel. She hadn’t wanted him to come at all, but he’d guessed they’d all be out celebrating and had called Abi relentlessly until she reluctantly told him where they were. Turns out his skin was a little thicker than she’d given him credit for because, short of yelling in his face ‘you’re a dick that nobody wants around,’ he still persisted in inviting himself along to things.
‘I think I’m going to have to stop sleeping with him, and then he might get the message,’ Abi said with a sigh as soon as she’d returned from booting him into a taxi.
‘Um, you think?’
The music in the brasserie had been turned up a notch to the level where Jayne had actually become aware that there was music playing. Their little group had shared the bar all afternoon with a few tables of suits who had made the transition from business lunch into the territory of ‘well it’s on expenses anyway, so let’s order brandies’, but they’d now been replaced with clusters of after-work revellers who had started to drift in. At the far end of the bar a band was starting to set up, tuning their instruments and their distinctly unmelodious twangs and ad hoc strumming coupled with nearly five hours of champagne-drinking had started to give Jayne a bit of a headache. Will snuck up behind her and snaked an arm around her waist, nuzzling into her neck. ‘How’s my favourite thing in all the world?’ He was slightly slurring too and had the makings of a thousand-yard stare.
‘I’m good, baby, but I think I might need to go home soon, but you stay out. I don’t want to drag you away from your party.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’d much rather be with you,’ he rested his chin on the top of her head as his arms wrapped around her. ‘Shall we tell everyone we’re going or just sneak out the bathroom window?’
‘Crawling through a window sounds so much more fun, but I think they’ll come after us. Quick hugs all round, then we’re off. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
After fifteen minutes of working their way around the group, sharing embraces that began as heartfelt shows of affection but turned into just holding each other up, Jayne and Will sat back in their taxi. They figured that if you can’t treat yourself to a cab from central London to Zone 4 on the day you make your television debut, when can you? Their fingers were entwine
d, with their thumbs engrossed in their usual thumb-war battle to be on top of the other person’s. ‘How are you doing?’ Jayne yawned, laying her head on his shoulder.
‘I’m good. I’m, well, a bit numb, to be honest. This is all a bit mad, isn’t it?’
‘A little bit. But good mad. It’s like looking through a window of a world not many people get to see.’
‘I like that. It sounds very poetic.’
‘You can use it if you like. It’s now yours.’
He kissed her head. ‘But I know what you mean, seeing the studio and the cameras and meeting the presenters, you just see the polished programme on screen and you don’t realise that in every break they’re flossing and having their noses brushed. And the lights were so hot on my face.’
‘Were they? You couldn’t tell. I remember watching a three-woman play on a tiny stage in a pub in Balham where the lights were so close to the stage one of the actress’s wig got singed. So bear that in mind. No wigs on set.’
‘Duly noted.’
They settled into a comfortable silence, leaning against each other, watching London whizz past them. All along the Thames the bare trees had been adorned with fairy lights that looked like stars caught safely in the branches. Christmas did something to this city, this huge city of anonymous, busy outsiders. For about six weeks of the year the whole place just seemed to take on an ethereal quality, a sort of mystical allure that sadly turned back into a pumpkin come January the second. As they stopped at some traffic lights they both watched a couple amble slowly along, stopping to hold the rail and watch a boat passing under a bridge. A night breeze blew their hair and the man reached down and picked up the end of his girlfriend’s, or wife’s, scarf and gently wound it around her neck again. Witnessing a moment of tenderness between strangers instinctively made Jayne and Will tighten their grip on each other’s hand.
The tranquil solitude was rudely shattered by a gruff South London burr from behind the glass, ‘You’re that bloke, aren’t you? The cook bloke.’
The cab driver was looking directly at Will in the rear-view mirror. Jayne could feel him shift uncomfortably in his seat, ‘Um, yes?’
‘Thought so. My missus made me watch your video on the internet. I got in loads of grief for giving her a hairdryer last Christmas, and now she wants me to make her bloody breakfast in bed this year. Thanks a chuffing lot.’
Chapter 12
Next to the bright-red toaster and matching kettle that they’d jubilantly bought in the John Lewis sale one rainy Sunday was the internet radio Rachel had given Will for his birthday last year. It was designed to look like an old 1950s radio, complete with proper dials and tuners, in a wooden casing. Much to Rachel’s pseudo disgust it was currently belting out non-stop festive music, thanks to a Swiss radio station Jayne had found called Radio Christmas that only played Christmas tunes. It was astonishing, and brilliant, Jayne thought, that there was enough festive music out there to keep an entire radio station going for the whole month of December. For other years she’d relied on her trusty Christmas compilation CD that started off well but now had a scratch over Bing Crosby’s ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’, so finding this radio station pretty much saved Christmas for her.
Thanks to Will’s love of all things Christmas, and perhaps a little bit to annoy Rachel, their small kitchen above the deli had become something of a grotto. White fairy lights ran along the top of the cupboards, over the window blind and above the framed map of the world, while little fabric red-and-white- gingham hearts hung from each door handle. Downstairs in the deli, an endless snaking line of customers had been clamouring for hampers filled with festive treats every day for the last few weeks, so their oven permanently had batches of cinnamon this and nutmeg that baking in it, giving the whole building an enduring scent of Christmas.
Every afternoon from about four o clock, Bernard and the latest addition to the roster, a lovely matronly woman called Sylvia, had been handing out little paper cups of warm mulled wine to ‘bring a little cheer to the dark afternoons,’ so notes of hot merlot and sliced oranges also perpetually hung in the air. As if the business needed boosting any more, Jayne thought wryly, the deli had never been busier. The potential prospect of glimpsing the charismatic owner who had appeared on pretty much every chat show going over the last few weeks meant that half of London suddenly had a desperate and unquenchable need for feta-stuffed olives and jars of date and apple chutney.
The last month had been like being on an out-of-control carousel, which whirled round and round without stopping. The end of term was always a busy time, but previously she’d been able to trudge home armed with blank reports to studiously spend her evenings filling in, while Will would thoughtfully top up her glass of Baileys and laugh at her well-practised variations of ‘your child is a Shakespeare-hating heathen.’ But for the last few weeks they’d barely crossed paths, let alone limbs.
Michaela had proven to be something of a whirling dervish, certainly earning her status as the doyenne of the PR scene in London. She had every booker’s number on speed dial and invitations to all the city’s see-and-be-seen parties jostling for position on her metaphorical mantelpiece. Will was her new pet project and she’d have got him into the opening of an envelope if there was the slightest chance it might aid his swift ascent to stardom. Jayne tried recalling all the events he’d been to so far this past fortnight – a cocktail reception at the National Gallery; the launch of a new Mont Blanc store in Bond Street; a charity cookout for Shelter.
She’d have loved to have accompanied him to some of them, but she knew it would be just impossible to then drag herself out of bed at 6.15 when the alarm sprang into action. The prospect of dealing with 1300 kids every morning certainly put late-night fun out of the equation during termtime.
She’d tried teaching on a hangover early on in her career, in the days where Abi and she would suddenly decide to go clubbing, just because they were young and living in London, and that’s what young people living in London were supposed to do, but she soon realised that no amount of frolicking the night before was worth the pain of enduring the next day in the classroom. This was a lesson Abi had yet to learn, but then spending a day mooching about the top-floor art studios fiddling with bits of clay sounded like a much easier prospect to Jayne than intense investigation into Hamlet’s motives for pretending to be mad. Not that she would ever voice this opinion out loud.
They’d set aside a couple of nights in the run-up to Christmas just for them. Will had told a sternly disappointed Michaela that he wasn’t sure how him being at the opening of the new polar-bear enclosure at London Zoo was going to enhance his reputation for being a TV chef, and instead they got a takeaway, a couple of bottles of nice wine and bribed Rachel to stay away for the evening. She’d had plans with Kyra anyway, but wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity for Jayne to clean her bathroom for a fortnight, so had made a cursory effort to look mildly put-upon before leaving with her already-packed overnight bag.
The remnants of some rice and half a naan bread littered the coffee table. They’d made a superficial effort at tidying up by moving the balti-stained plates into the kitchen, but to do more was a bit beyond them at that moment. Lying back on the sofa, glass of wine in hand, Will put his feet into Jayne’s lap and kept nudging her until she started to rub them.
‘So I was standing next to this sculpture, which I swear looked as though someone had bent a few pipes together, when these two elderly women came up and stood next to me. They were really well dressed, you know, like they had lifelong membership to the Arts Council or something, both carrying their bags like this,’ he stuck out his forearm and mimed having a handbag hanging over the crook of his arm, ‘and they each had a glass of champagne. And one of them said, ‘Now this sculpture I do like, look Maria,’ and I thought, oh hello, here we go, what arty farty nonsense are they going to start spouting now? And the other one said, ‘Oh yes, Polly, it’s the perfect height for resting your flute on.’ A
nd they both put their empty glasses on top of the sculpture and left! I actually thought I was going to spit out my drink and I looked around but no one else saw it and I wished that you were there laughing with me. Promise you’ll come to the next one?’
‘As soon as term ends, I promise, you’ll have your partner in crime back.’
‘Excellent, because I’ve missed her.’
‘Are you getting all soppy on me?’
‘A little. I mean I’m loving doing these shows and going to these parties and things, but Michaela drags me around shaking hands with different network heads and magazine editors and all I really want to do is skulk in a corner with you and laugh at everyone else.’
‘Okay, I’ll come to anything after next Wednesday.’ Jayne waited a little while before she said, with a tone she hoped sounded indifferent, ‘um, has anyone ever asked about me?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, in all these interviews you’re doing, has anyone ever asked if you’re seeing anyone?’
A pause. ‘A few people.’
‘And?’ He was really maddening sometimes, just dragging out information that he knew that she desperately wanted to hear.
‘And, the first time it happened, I opened my mouth to say yes and to tell them about you and then Michaela cut in and said that I’m not married yet, so um, yes, I was still single.’ He added these last few words as a very quiet, sheepish mumble.
‘Single?’ Jayne shrieked, all efforts to be nonchalant and casual vanished, along with the convivial atmosphere of the evening.
Will sat up and took her hand, which she snatched away, ‘Well, I never actually said that I was single, no, of course I’m not, but Michaela thinks it’s better while I’m just starting out if people think that I’m, well, available. It might make me more, um, popular.’
‘Right. And me being around would, by that reasoning, make you unpopular.’ Her voice had risen a few decibels, ‘and you agreed with Michaela?’ she knew she was being petty now, spitting out Michaela’s name in a whiny nasally voice that she heard herself doing and despised herself for it, but couldn’t help it. They’d always had each other’s backs, that was what was so great about them as a couple, and now here he was, on the verge of making a real name for himself and the person who had supported him through all of it was just supposed to blend into the background.
Me, You and Tiramisu Page 13