by Fiona Harper
‘Okay,’ she finally said. They’d reached the park now, but instead of sprinting off she led the way to a bench and they both sat down. The grass was still frosty, glistening in the winter sun and the park was deserted, except for a couple of other runners and a few late-morning dog walkers.
‘There’s a lot I want to say, but I think for it all to make sense, I need to start at the beginning.’ Juliet heaved in a breath then looked very earnestly at her sister. ‘You know when Mum broke down after Dad died?’
Gemma nodded.
‘Well, that wasn’t the first time...’
And she began to tell a story of two sisters, two parents and two very different childhoods. Gemma listened silently as Juliet told her about a horrible Christmas when Mum had left home, a Christmas she didn’t even remember, save for the doll she’d cherished for years until its head had fallen off. She listened to other stories, too, of times when she’d been living in the house, but had no idea of what was going on, and it kept going... Past childhood, into adolescence, adulthood. Right up until the time their mother had died.
When Juliet finished talking and waited for a response of some kind Gemma found she couldn’t speak. She felt as if what she’d thought of as a happy, secure childhood had been wiped from the blackboard of her memory and replaced with someone else’s. Had none of it been real? Memories were all she had left of her parents. Now those were all shredded to pieces, leaving her with nothing to hang onto. That wonderful, happy childhood that had made her feel so sure of her place in the world was gone, and with it her courage and her confidence drained away.
She stood up on shaky legs and looked down at Juliet.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said hoarsely, ‘but I need to do this.’ And then she turned towards the great hill that led up towards the Royal Observatory and ran away as fast as she could.
* * *
GEMMA FOUND JULIET AT the top of the hill about half an hour later, resting on the railing and looking out over the ancient park, the three-hundred-year-old naval college on this side of the Thames and then the glittering skyscrapers of Canary Wharf beyond. Two sides of the river, so very different. New and old. Traditional and cutting-edge. And both sides forever divided by the flowing water they had in common.
She slowed to a light jog and went to join Juliet, matching her pose, gazing without really looking at the city stretched out beneath them.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, glancing in Juliet’s direction. ‘That was rather a lot to process all at once.’
Juliet didn’t look round but she nodded. ‘I understand. I’ve had years to fester over this stuff. It was a lot to take in one go.’
Gemma nodded. And how. ‘I have some questions...’
Her sister straightened and turned to look at her. ‘You still want to talk to me?’ She looked very relieved at that. And younger. So much younger. Which was odd, because Juliet had always been the grown-up in Gemma’s eyes.
‘Can we walk?’ she asked, and they set off along the path that ran around the top of the hill. When they’d left the few people milling around the viewing area behind she asked, ‘Why did they trust you with all of this and not me? Why was all this such a big secret?’
Juliet shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know. I was so small when it started that I never questioned it myself. It was what we did.’
‘Lying to Gemma,’ she said bitterly.
Juliet looked at her sharply. ‘No!’ she said, her voice soft rather than strident. ‘Protecting Gemma. There’s a big difference.’
‘No wonder I sometimes felt as if I was on the outside, looking in.’
Juliet looked as if she might cry. ‘I never knew you felt that way! I would have given anything not to know... It wasn’t an honour, you know.’ Her expression grew hard. ‘It was more like a sentence.’ Her voice grew quiet, barely more than a whisper. ‘Sometimes I think she hated me for knowing the truth.’
Gemma swallowed. Well, that explained a lot. How there’d been tension between her and their mother, and how nothing Gemma did to try to help ever made things better.
Juliet nodded to herself. ‘We both travelled the paths our parents laid down for us without even realising it. I doubt they even realised it themselves.’ She stopped walking and turned to look at Gemma. ‘I think they would hate to see how we’ve ended up. I know I do.’
Darn that stinging at the top of her nose! Gemma swiped a hand across her eyes. ‘Me too,’ she said, her voice wobbly.
Juliet looked back at her, her chest rising and falling beneath the buttons of her camel-coloured coat. ‘It seems so stupid now, being cross with you for not knowing things, for never being burdened with them, but I suppose I was jealous of the charmed life you had. Really, I should have been angry with Mum, but she seemed so fragile and you seemed so resilient.’
Gemma let out a long sigh. ‘I wish you’d told me all this earlier.’
Juliet nodded. ‘I wish I had too, but somehow I’d got sucked into the habit of not telling you things and I just couldn’t stop. But I can see what you’ve been trying to tell me for ages now—that you’re a capable, confident woman, Gemma. You don’t need me to protect you from life, because you’re more than capable of dealing with it on your own.’
Gemma swallowed and her eyes went pink round the rims. ‘Thank you. But I fed into the problem too, by behaving like a child sometimes, by running away and pretending I didn’t care rather than facing up to it. And I do care, Juliet. I always have, and I don’t want things to end up the way they have.’
Much to her relief, Juliet smiled. ‘That’s why I came here today. I want us to start again. Maybe now we’ve blown the pieces of our sibling relationship to kingdom come, we can build something new. I still want us to be sisters, but I want us to be friends, too.’ She looked down at her boots and then back up at Gemma. ‘I need you, Gemma. I really do.’
Gemma just rushed forward and crushed her sister into the biggest hug ever—one that had been brewing for years and years—and once she’d started she couldn’t seem to stop. It was just as well that Juliet clutched her just as tightly back.
When they finally pulled back, Juliet smiled and said, ‘I wanted to say thank-you for everything you did over Christmas. Doris told me how you pulled it off on Christmas Day. The kids seem really happy and relaxed and the house was really tidy.’
Gemma gave her a questioning look.
‘Okay, the house wasn’t really tidy, but it was pretty good, seeing as I’d expected dystopian devastation on my return.’
‘How are the kids?’ Gemma asked. ‘I miss them.’
‘I think they miss you too. Especially at breakfast time. I had to go and buy a whole new stack of cake decorations.’
Gemma was about to defend herself on that front, but Juliet quickly added, ‘It’s fine, honestly. They told me you made them eat fruit, too... And it was Christmas. Anyway, Violet has fallen out with Abby—something to do with a boy, I think—the twins are hyper enough to need to go back to school and Polly is most upset I haven’t returned home with a tropical disease so she can discover some ground-breaking treatment and be the youngest person ever to receive a Nobel Prize.’
Gemma chuckled, but thinking of the kids led to thinking of Juliet’s house, and that led to thinking of the house next door... Since they were being so open and honest with each other, there was one other subject she really needed to prod.
She looked out across the park. ‘Have you seen Will?’ she asked, keeping her tone light.
When she glanced back at Juliet, her expression was a little more rigid than it had been.
‘He came to see me,’ she said. ‘To explain.’
Gemma nodded. So her sister wasn’t ready to go that far yet. It was too new, too raw, too tacked on to all the other things that had happened that week. The warmth she’d been feeling b
led away a little. Maybe Juliet would never be ready. But that was the choice she’d made, and she was going to live with it, however difficult it was. It was time to stop pushing now. They’d covered enough ground for one day.
‘So...about this guy on holiday? Please tell me that at least he was very, very hot.’
Juliet blushed, something she never did, and Gemma was tempted to chuckle.
‘He was Italian.’
Gemma fanned herself down. ‘Nuff said.’
The tea house wasn’t far away and she caught Juliet by the arm and steered her in that direction. ‘Care to join me in some coffee and something naughty? They do fabulous chocolate cheesecake.’
Juliet looked over Gemma’s Lycra-clad form. ‘I thought you were on a health kick.’
Gemma made a ‘whatever’ kind of face. ‘Nah. I’ll start Monday.’
Juliet frowned. ‘But today’s Monday.’
‘Oh, well. Next Monday, then,’ Gemma said, and she and Juliet walked into the tea house laughing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
IT WAS A CHILLY but bright day in central Paris. Gemma walked along the banks of the Seine, a walkie-talkie in her hand, and went through the security cordon onto the Pont des Arts. Crowds had gathered at either end of the steel pedestrian bridge, just downstream from the Île de la Cité, hoping to catch a glimpse of two of Hollywood’s bright young things, who were filming a romantic comedy right in that spot.
The two stars, Ruby Coleman and Jared Fisher, were talking with the director in the middle of the bridge, preparing to shoot the big reunion scene at the end of the film, and Gemma waited patiently for them to finish their discussion. While she did, she looked around, making sure she could see everything was going smoothly.
As well as the public, crowded at each end of the bridge, there were two huge groups of extras. It wasn’t easy to use real people as bystanders when they were filming, so they tended to use people who were paid to act natural. Thankfully, since Gemma usually worked on big-budget films these days, she didn’t have to be responsible for herding them herself—she had someone to do it for her.
She held up her hand to shade her eyes from the bright winter sunshine and squinted. Calvin, the director, seemed to be having a really in-depth chat with Ruby and Jared. Probably a variation on the old What’s my motivation? theme. That meant they could be going a while yet. She sighed. She needed to talk to him about one of the supporting cast who needed emergency dental treatment. It was going to mess up their schedule for the next few days.
She glanced around, trying not to notice how beautiful Paris looked in the January sunshine. She didn’t want to see the river rushing under her feet, or see the art nouveau architecture or the ancient spires rising behind the chimney pots. It was bad enough being in the city of love with an aching heart without having it rammed up your nose.
Thank goodness she was crazy busy. Filming in a city centre made things even more challenging, but instead of resenting it, Gemma was welcoming the extra madness. It stopped her having time to think, which was good, because every time her brain had nothing to do there was only one path it wanted to take, and that path took her right back to Will.
If only...she kept thinking. If only she’d noticed what he was really like before, when Juliet and Greg had been married. If only Juliet’s Italian hadn’t turned out to be such a slimeball and she could have come home loved up and ready to move to Italy. There were a thousand ways her mind could play it. Not that it did her any good.
She and Juliet were only just patching things up again, and if she wrecked it now she knew there’d never be a second chance. She was just going to have to be patient, pray hard, and hope that whatever had been fizzling between her and Will would last past the healing period. But there was a lot to heal. It could take months, or even years. There might never be a right time for them.
She marched forward and squinted at the trio in the middle of the bridge again. Seriously? What was taking all this time? What’s your motivation? You’re crazy in love with the girl and when you see her standing alone on the bridge, you run up to her and sweep her into your arms. How hard could it be?
Finally they all moved away from each other. Calvin came back to his bank of monitors at what the crew nicknamed ‘video village’ and Ruby and Jared took up their places on the bridge. Gemma sidled in close to the First AD and the director, waiting for an opportune moment. While some days she was quite happy to hang out on set and watch the action, all this lovey-dovey stuff they were up to today was just depressing. She wanted to be out of here and back to the safety of her car-park base as soon as possible.
Gemma watched on the monitors as the actors did their first take. Ruby was fab, the pro that she was, but this was Jared’s first rom-com. He was more used to action movies and he’d been dropped in the deep end, since time restrictions on using this particular bridge meant they were shooting the end of the film first.
One of the crew behind her chuckled. ‘He’s running like the Terminator,’ he said, and then everyone had to cover their mouths with their hands.
Gemma quite enjoyed the moment of hilarity. She hadn’t had a lot to laugh about recently. It was true, though. Jared was running more like Bourne or Bond than a man trying to sweep his woman off her feet. And when he got to Ruby it was even worse. The kiss he delivered looked wooden and uncomfortable. Poor Ruby.
Gemma had worked with Calvin a few times before and she knew him well enough to see that he was getting really stressed. Now was probably not the best time to break the news about Miranda’s broken crown. Maybe she’d better tell him later.
Her base was on the opposite side of the river, and it’d be much quicker if she could cross the bridge and walk back there, rather than having to trek round to the next bridge along, which she’d done when she’d got here. So she waited for the next take to end and when Calvin got up to go and talk to Jared again she followed him, intending to nip across the wooden bridge before filming recommenced.
She’d just passed the actors and director when she heard someone calling her name. She turned, frowning, but she couldn’t see who it was. Flip. It was probably Charlie, the First AD. Why he wasn’t using his walkie-talkie she’d never know. Her shoulders slumped. Now she’d have to go back to the monitor bank and she’d lose her opportunity to cross the river before they started up again. Thanks, Charlie.
She turned and headed back to where he was standing, but then she heard it again.
‘Gemma!’
This time it definitely came from behind her. She spun around again, trying to see what the big emergency was about.
It was at that exact moment that one of the extras broke ranks and started running. Well, that was a certain way to get fired. What the heck was the guy up to?
And she could still hear someone calling her name.
Then everything went weird for a little bit. She realised the extra’s mouth was moving about the same time she saw a security guard set off after him. And then she noticed that the shouts and the man’s mouth were synchronised.
That’s when her legs went wobbly. That’s when she realised who it was running and shouting. It wasn’t a faceless extra running towards her, it was Will.
Bystanders at the edge of the bridge seemed to have noticed that something was going on, because she could hear cheering. She wanted to start running too, but her legs didn’t want to work, and neither did her lungs, so she just stood where she was and helplessly watched him sprinting towards her.
He slowed when he was a short distance away and walked the last few steps. Gemma pressed a hand to her chest. She needed to sit down. Now. Before she fell down. He was looking ever so serious.
‘The first thing I want to know is if anyone on this film set has been pestering you.’
She shook her head.
‘Good,’ Will sai
d, still looking quite stern, and then he added, ‘because if anyone is going to be feeling you up on a film set, it’s going to be me. And I’m going to start right now.’
And then all she could think about was the wonderful sensation of being in his arms, feeling his lips on hers. ‘What...? How...?’ she mumbled in between kisses.
Will reluctantly pulled back to look at her. ‘Juliet came to see me yesterday. She said she realised she was suffering more from a case of hurt pride than a broken heart.’
Gemma’s insides started to flutter. ‘What does that mean?’ she asked him, grabbing onto his coat and sounding more than a little desperate.
He smiled, slowly, like the sun coming out. ‘It means she gives us her blessing.’
She knew she’d joked about Juliet being close to sainthood before, but now she was starting to think that she was something of a prophet herself. Juliet had done that? For her? Tears welled up in her eyes.
She ran her fingers up Will’s cheeks, skimming his cheekbones, hardly daring to believe she was touching him. Did her sister know what she’d given her? Did she even realise how wonderful this man was? He might not earn big bucks or run around on film sets all day, but she didn’t care about that. He was strong and trustworthy, brave and honourable. That sounded pretty much like a hero to her. And he’d just proved he had it in him to be crazy and impulsive! She reckoned she’d hit the jackpot.
‘How...how did you get here?’
‘Eurostar,’ he replied, a naughty twinkle in his eye.
She punched him lightly on his arm. ‘I meant on set. Security is pretty tight.’
He grinned at her. ‘Just managed to charm a few people, use my creative resources, be in the right place at the right time. I think you’re rubbing off on me.’
‘You’re insane!’ she told him, looking around and realising they were holding up filming and that every one of their kisses had probably cost thousands of dollars. ‘You couldn’t have just used the phone?’