Martin, the director, waved at him. ‘Al, we’re ready to go again in a minute,’ he called.
Alex stood up and stretched. ‘Sorry, guys, no rest for the wicked.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll see you tonight at—’ He was cut short as he was almost knocked flying by the runner who had brought him his bacon sandwich. The boy was red-faced and out of breath. ‘Whoa, slow down there, mate,’ said Alex. ‘What’s the rush?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ said the runner. His eyes were wide and frightened. ‘A plane has just hit the World Trade Center.’
‘What? You’re joking?’ said Falk, shooting a look at Alex. ‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve just read the tickertape in Times Square. Everyone’s yelling about it down there, it’s chaos.’
A burly man in sunglasses and an earpiece approached them swiftly from David’s Town Car. Alex had met him before; he was an ex-Navy Seal who served as Falk’s bodyguard and security adviser. He took Falk’s arm and led him to one side, speaking urgently out of earshot. Alex watched David’s expression become more grave.
‘OK, you two,’ said David, taking both Alex and Melissa by the arm and steering them towards the car. ‘You’re coming with me.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Alex.
‘Out of Manhattan.’
‘Why?’ Alex looked behind him. Everyone was crowding around the location van watching a small television.
‘Come on, Alex,’ growled Falk, tugging his arm.
‘We can’t just leave,’ said Alex, looking to Melissa for support.
‘He’s right, David,’ said the actress. ‘What about all the others?’
‘Just get in the freaking car,’ said Falk sternly. ‘They think it could be a terrorist attack. There’re rumours of other planes being hijacked. The city might be under siege.’
‘Oh shit.’
Alex felt his heart thumping. The tall buildings appeared to be crowding in around him, each one suddenly seeming to have the capability to explode on top of them at any moment. Falk pushed Alex and Melissa into the car and they sped off across Broadway towards Eighth Avenue. David leant forward to switch the car’s TV screen on, flicking to a news channel. They watched in silence as the unbelievable footage was shown: shaky amateur film of a jet liner crashing into a gleaming skyscraper. The news cut to a reporter standing close to the tower, holding a microphone. Behind him, they could see the chaos: people in suits running away, people in uniform running towards it. There was a weird dislocation: they were watching this on the television, but it was happening right outside. Just as they crossed Eleventh Avenue, heading for the West Side parkway, the driver had to swerve to avoid two fire trucks, their lights and sirens screaming. Alex turned to look out of the window and could see a thick column of smoke rising from the south of the island.
‘Jesus, this is really happening,’ he said, glancing at Melissa. She looked scared and instinctively he reached out to squeeze her hand.
‘Look!’ said Falk suddenly, causing Alex to spin back around. He frowned, not sure what was happening on the screen.
‘Is that another one?’
The on-screen camera pulled out rapidly and they could see that a second plane had flown into the other tower.
‘Fuck,’ whispered Alex. He wasn’t sure if he knew anyone who would be so far downtown at nine o’clock in the morning. Then again, the horrors unfolding on the television were so shocking and surreal, it was impossible to think clearly about anything.
The driver pressed his fingers to his earpiece. ‘Sir, I have a contact who says fighters have been scrambled,’ he said, glancing into his rear-view mirror. ‘There’s a plane heading for Washington, maybe a couple more.’
The car was hurtling towards the George Washington Bridge at over fifty miles an hour, but they were forced to slow as they reached the on-ramp. A crush of traffic was causing a bottleneck and police vans were pulling up, officers unloading barriers.
‘Get us through,’ ordered Falk.
‘Hold on, ladies and gents,’ said the driver. They felt a bump as the car mounted a kerb, then swerved around a barrier. There was frantic beeping and a policeman jumped out waving his arms, but the driver ignored him, squeezing the big car between a truck and a minivan, losing a wing-mirror in the process. Alex could see that they had just made it on to the bridge; the barriers were right across the four lanes behind them.
‘God help anyone still on there,’ said David as they watched the island metropolis disappear.
Alex thought of friends living in SoHo, and Tribeca. Mike, Josh, Marty, all the crew in the van in midtown.
He was running away again. It was what he did best.
The car took them upstate to the sumptuous country home of David’s friend, the fashion designer Todd Barabosa. Within a few hours it had become a refugee camp for the super-rich and influential: all of the celebrities, powerbrokers and foreign dignitaries with the influence and connections to get them out of Manhattan had come here, spirited into the gated estate by armed drivers. Todd’s staff made food and kept the coffee flowing but no one was in the mood to eat or drink. People stood in small huddles close to the huge plasma televisions, watching the terrible events unfold, some crying, others stunned into a muted disbelieving silence. Everyone in the room knew they were going nowhere; the airports were in lock-down, the bridges and tunnels in and out of Manhattan closed, and until they knew what was really happening, they were in the safest place.
Alex didn’t feel safe. He felt vulnerable and isolated. Everyone seemed to have someone to call – loved ones, families, connected people with information. Alex had called his mum, who burst into tears of relief when she heard his voice, but he didn’t really have anyone else. He smiled at the irony. Thousands, no, millions of girls would chop off an arm to get close to him, yet there was no one out there frantically calling him, checking he was OK. Feeling hemmed in, he walked outside into the garden, a gush of balmy late-afternoon breeze ruffling his long hair.
‘Alex, wait!’ He turned to see Melissa running after him. ‘I don’t really know anyone in there. Do you mind if I tag along?’
‘Not at all.’
They wandered through the luscious grounds, not talking – there didn’t seem to be anything to say. They took a dusty path through the mowed lawns studded with beds of foxgloves and roses, up towards a shady copse that overlooked the whole estate. From there, Alex could see the colonial house, a glinting lake and a paddock of horses grazing peacefully. No one would know that anything was wrong with the world from this distance. They sat down on the hillside and he stole a sideways glance at Melissa. She really was an incredibly sexual creature: pillowy lips, high cheekbones and pale blond hair that she pulled back from her long neck. Most of all, though, he liked the way she seemed human; genuinely devastated by the events.
‘You didn’t know anyone in the towers?’
He shook his head.
‘You live in LA, don’t you?’ It wasn’t really a question. It was one of the strange things about being famous; people knew things about you. He was also amazed at the way other celebrities would instantly bond with you, a complicit understanding that you were part of their club. They talked vaguely about the people they knew in common, sharing silly stories and amusing anecdotes, talking of a life far beyond the tragic scenes of lower Manhattan. As the sun began to slip from the sky, Alex realised they had been there over an hour and that it was turning cold.
‘I think I’m going to get back to the house,’ he said.
‘Stay with me just a little while longer,’ she said, still staring out over the fields.
He shrugged. ‘OK, cool.’
And when she rested her head on his shoulder and he pulled her close, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. On a day like this, everybody needed someone to make them feel just a little bit less vulnerable and afraid. Because for all their money and fame and acquaintances, neither of them had anyone to hold them. They were both alone.
&
nbsp; 42
January 2002
‘This is so spooky,’ said Olivia, grabbing her mother’s hand so tightly she could feel the wedding ring dig into her flesh. Not for the first time, Grace wondered why she still wore it, even if she had switched it to her right hand.
‘Actually, darling, I think it’s rather beautiful,’ whispered Grace. ‘Like somewhere a fairy princess might get married. It’s very romantic.’
On any other day, the loch-side chapel would have looked bleak and severe against the deep violet Scottish sky, the highland hills pressing in on all sides. But this evening, it looked otherworldly, illuminated by torchlight that flickered long shadows against the stone.
‘Do you think Bonnie Prince Charlie came here?’ asked Joseph as they clambered out of the Land Rover which had brought them from their B&B. ‘We did him at school. He had a claymore sword. Can I have a sword, Mum?’
‘No, darling, you can’t,’ said Grace, pulling the collar of her cashmere coat up around her ears and leading the children past a lone piper in full clan tartan and into the church.
‘Bride or groom?’ asked a handsome usher in a midnight-blue kilt.
‘Bride,’ she said, accepting her order of service printed on thick vellum. As they sat down, Grace discreetly leant forward to look at the groom. She had never met him, but had occasionally read about him in the society pages, thanks to his status as the eldest son of one of Scotland’s richest land-owning lords.
With the triumphant flourish of Handel’s ‘Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’, the two hundred guests all stood and turned to watch the bride make her way up the aisle, resplendent in ivory bridal couture.
It was no surprise to Grace that her old friend from Danehurst Freya Nicholls was marrying well: in a few minutes Freya would become the Countess of Kalcraig. The surprise – to Grace at least – was that she had accepted the invitation. In the twelve years since they had shared a house together in Bristol, Freya had barely been in touch – sporadic postcards and emails and one random visit two years ago when Freya was in Ibiza to spend the weekend on a friend’s yacht. But when a ‘Save the Date’ announcement had arrived at her Ibizan farmhouse four months earlier, Grace had felt compelled to reply. She still wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision; it certainly hadn’t been any fun making the seven-hour journey with two whining ten-year-olds. They had perked up since they had seen the castle, though.
‘Wow, look at this place,’ said Olivia as they followed the procession back from the church to the Kalcraig’s family home, where the wedding breakfast was to be held.
‘It’s like a real palace. Is this where Countess Freya is going to live?’
‘One day, I think,’ said Grace. She suspected that Freya would almost certainly stay in the double-fronted townhouse in Notting Hill the couple also owned; she had never visited, but it had appeared in countless interiors magazines.
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Countess Freya, I mean,’ said Olivia. ‘I bet all the boys used to like her at college.’
‘They did,’ replied Grace. ‘Including some of the boys I used to like.’
‘So why are we at her wedding if she used to do that?’ said Joseph, bristling.
‘I was joking, darling.’ Grace smiled. She loved how Joseph was so protective of her, but she worried that the divorce had affected the kids more than they let on. Gabriel didn’t visit very often and was formal and distant when he did. He had aged visibly since they had left Parador: the party’s fortunes hadn’t improved much and the strain of keeping the movement alive was taking its toll. The children rarely mentioned their father when he wasn’t there and had taken diametrically opposed positions on marriage: Joseph was staunchly against any sort of relationship, saying it was ‘stupid’ while Olivia had romanticised it to the extent that she believed in Disney-style happy endings. So Joe would snarl at any man who came near his mother, while Liv would scare them even more by immediately grilling them on their preference for summer or winter weddings. Not that Grace had the time or inclination for a relationship; she was still licking her wounds from the last one.
‘Can we meet the Countess, Mummy?’ said Olivia, tugging at Grace’s hand as they moved into the huge vaulted hall of Kalcraig Castle.
‘Of course, Livvy, it’s traditional to greet the bride and groom when you arrive at the reception.’
They joined the line crowding to give their congratulations to the happy couple. Ahead of her, Grace recognised a BAFTA-WINNING actor, several famous authors and a Vogue cover girl, but no friends or acquaintances of her own. She supposed the real reason she had accepted Freya’s invitation was because she had been hoping to meet up with old friends from Danehurst and Bristol, almost all of whom had dropped off her radar. Lately she had found herself becoming quite nostalgic; she certainly regretted cutting herself off so ruthlessly after that 1990 summer. Time and maturity made it easier for her to admit that she had been both rash and dramatic, and she had spent many hours on the internet lately, particularly on a site called Friends Reunited, looking up people from the past.
‘Gracie!’ squealed Freya as they shuffled up, clasping her to her breast, smothering her in silk. ‘It’s so amazing to see you.’
‘Congratulations, you look stunning,’ said Grace, suddenly feeling frumpy and old next to her friend.
‘I ought to, I’ve been working towards today for five months. I swear I haven’t eaten anything solid since New Year.’ She lowered her head towards Grace’s ear. ‘I think you’re going to love the table plan. Guess who you’re sitting next to?’
Grace held her breath, half expecting her to say Alex Doyle. She wouldn’t have put it past Freya to reacquaint herself with Alex especially now that he was a Grammy-winning musician.
‘Sasha Sinclair.’ She giggled.
Grace tried not to show her dismay. ‘I didn’t know you were in touch with Sasha,’ she said.
‘We weren’t, but then I met her at a party a few months ago. You know she runs Rivera? Absolutely divine. I told her I was getting married and how US Vogue wanted to do something on the wedding, so she offered to do my gown at cost. And isn’t it fabulous?’
‘Beautiful,’ said Grace distractedly, glancing around for the face she had seen so many times in style magazines; and there she was, already seated at table nine. Calm down, Grace, she thought to herself. It’s only Sasha Sinclair, not Freddy Krueger. After all, she had seen Alex in Ibiza and there had only been a flicker of discomfort. And she saw Miles too, perhaps once a year, and they managed to be civil to each other at least.
‘Hello, Grace,’ said Sasha stiffly, standing to give Grace a brittle embrace. ‘I wondered if you might be here.’
‘Freya’s been talking about marrying a rich, powerful man for nearly twenty years; I couldn’t miss it now it’s happened,’ said Grace.
‘Are we sitting together?’ asked Sasha, looking down at the place cards.
‘You are now,’ said Joseph, moving around the table to put Grace and Sasha’s cards together.
‘Joe, I don’t think you should . . .’
‘No, he’s right, Mum,’ said Olivia, moving another card around. ‘And I’ll sit on the other side of Sasha. I’ve seen you in Vogue,’ she said eagerly, climbing into her new seat. ‘I want to be a fashion designer too.’
‘Do you now?’ said Sasha with an imperious smile. ‘Well I’ll have to see what you know, won’t I?’ adding in mock-confession, ‘Although strictly speaking I’m not a fashion designer.’
Grace smiled. She was not surprised that the self-confident eighteen-year-old had grown up into the slightly intimidating, successful beauty in front of her. They were joined at the table by the groom’s unmarried cousin, his former nanny and her septuagenarian brother, plus a braying friend from Cambridge who monopolised the first half of the meal regaling them with highly inappropriate stories of the groom’s sexual adventures at university.
‘I think we can safely say we got the duff table,’ whispered Sash
a as the dessert was brought around. ‘And to think I practically gave her wedding dress to her.’
‘Don’t let my father know you’re giving dresses away at cost.’
Grace detected something in Sasha’s expression. Discomfort? For a moment she entertained the idea that Sasha had spent the last decade being plagued by memories of the island too, then dismissed the thought. Stupid, she scolded herself. If that was the case she would hardly have taken Robert Ashford’s investment in her company, would she?
‘You should come into the Bond Street store yourself while you’re in the UK,’ said Sasha quickly. ‘Our silk jersey wrap dresses will look incredible on you. You have an amazing figure now.’
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