by Jill Mansell
“Of course it would be easier,” he continued gently, “but you can’t put your life on hold while you wait to find out one way or the other. You could carry on like that indefinitely and still not get an answer.”
Beginning to feel like one of those novelty dogs in the backs of cars, Janey nodded again. Guy’s voice was wonderfully soothing, and now that her nose was no longer blocked from crying, she was able to taste the hefty measure of brandy he’d added to her coffee.
Guy, however, was really getting into his stride. “I’m going to be brutal,” he said, fixing her with his unnervingly direct gaze. “If Alan is dead, he’s dead. If he’s alive, it means he did a particularly cowardly runner. Either way, the marriage is over.”
He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, but Janey still winced. Having clung so fiercely in those first few weeks to the total-amnesia theory, she had never been able to discard it from her subconscious. “Yes,” she replied obediently. “I know that.”
“So what you have to do is put it behind you anyway and rebuild your life.”
Janey managed a brief smile. “That’s what I was trying to do. With Bruno.”
“Heaven help us.” With a rueful shake of his head, Guy said, “Now that’s what I call choosing the wrong man for the job. Tell me, who would you go to if you needed brain surgery? A lumberjack?”
“Don’t. I think I must need brain surgery.” This time she laughed. All of a sudden, the Bruno fiasco didn’t seem quite so terrible. Guy had certainly been right when he’d said it helped to have someone to talk to.
“OK, so now you forget him,” he declared briskly. “He’s an unscrupulous little shit, and he’ll get his comeuppance sooner or later. With any luck,” he added suddenly, “it’ll be with Maxine. Punishment enough for any man, I’d have thought. Even a bastard like Parry-Brent.”
• • •
By the time Guy rose to leave, it was after three o’clock. Janey, opening the front door for him, found herself suddenly and unaccountably overcome by shyness.
“Well, thank you.” Clutching the door handle for support, she shifted from one stockinged foot to the other. “For um…bringing me home. And for staying to talk.”
“No problem,” said Guy easily. “I’ve enjoyed myself.”
Without her high heels, she was dwarfed by him. And since he’d seen her lose both her dignity and her makeup, Janey realized, there wasn’t a great deal of point in being shy. She owed him so much for having come to her rescue, the very least she could do was reach up on tiptoe and give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
But her courage failed her, and she remained firmly rooted to the carpet. Some people, like Maxine, did that kind of thing all the time, but she herself just wasn’t the quick-kiss-on-the-cheek type. Besides, thought Janey, how awful if Guy thought she was making some kind of amateurish pass at him…
“I’m glad you decided to sneak away from the charity dinner, anyway,” she said hurriedly before he could read her mind.
“Not half as glad as I am.” He grinned. “It was pretty dire.”
“And I hope Charlotte isn’t too furious with you for abandoning her at the party.”
“Well, at least you’ve managed to stop apologizing,” said Guy, sounding amused. “All you have to do now is stop feeling guilty on my behalf. If I’m not worried about Charlotte, I don’t see why you should be.”
“Oh, but isn’t she—”
“Absolutely not. She’s a friend, but that’s as far as it goes. And shame on you,” he added in mocking tones, “for even thinking otherwise. What has your fiendish sister been saying about me?”
“Nothing at all,” lied Janey. “I’m sorry. It was just me, getting it wrong as usual. I suppose it was because Charlotte seemed so…well, so keen.”
“She did?” Guy looked genuinely surprised. Then he shrugged. “I’m not encouraging her, anyway. As I told you once before, I gave up behaving like Bruno Parry-Brent a couple of years ago. It isn’t worth the hassle.” He paused, then added severely, “And while we’re on the subject of faithfulness, who was that chap I saw you with at the theater the other week? I don’t suppose you mentioned him to Bruno.”
Aaargh, thought Janey, blushing in the darkness. Just when she thought she’d gotten away with it. “Oh, him. He wasn’t worth mentioning,” she said, her tone offhand. “I hadn’t even met him before that night. A so-called friend set me up on a blind date.” She shuddered. “I could have killed her; I’d never been so embarrassed in my life.”
“Until tonight,” Guy reminded her. “And I’m afraid you’re really going to have to learn not to feel guilty on your own behalf.”
Janey’s blush deepened. “What do you mean?”
“After you’d left, I was introduced to your blind date’s sister,” he replied evenly. “She told me he’d met you through a Lonely Hearts column in the local paper.”
“Oh God,” sighed Janey, mortified.
“I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed,” Guy continued briskly. “He might have a loud laugh, but he can’t be as much of a bastard as Parry-Brent. You need to make up your mind about what you really want.”
Now he’d managed to make her feel deeply ashamed of herself. Was there no end to this man’s talents?
Janey glanced at her watch. It was three fifteen. She said, “I think what I really want is to go to sleep.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Oh, please,” Maxine begged, thrusting the letter into Guy’s hands. In her excitement she’d almost torn it in two. “Look, the audition’s tomorrow! I’ll just die if I can’t go up for it…and think how thrilled Josh and Ella would be if I were chosen! They’d be able to see me on television…”
“Sitting on the loo,” said Guy acerbically, having scanned the contents of the letter. “Maxine, this is an audition for a toilet-roll commercial. It’s hardly Macbeth.”
“You mustn’t say that word; it’s always referred to as the Scottish play,” she replied in lofty tones. Then, because she didn’t want to irritate him, she waved her arms in a gesture of apology. “But you can call it anything you like.”
“I still call this a toilet-roll commercial.” Guy remained unimpressed. “And I can’t imagine why you should even want to do it. What’s happened? Have they run out of puppies?”
Maxine was practically hopping up and down with frustration. It was all right for him, she seethed; he was already successful and famous.
“It’s a brilliant opportunity,” she explained, struggling to control her impatience and giving him a beseeching look. “It means I’d be seen by millions, and that includes other directors. A break like this gets you known. And the pay is fabulous too. All those repeat fees!”
“It’s still only an audition.” Guy frowned. “I don’t know what makes you think you stand a chance anyway.”
“I do,” said Maxine happily. “The casting director’s a friend of mine. Oh, please say I can go! It isn’t too much to ask, is it? If I catch the eight o’clock train tomorrow morning, I can be home again by six.”
“And I’m flying out to Amsterdam tonight. What are you planning to do with Josh and Ella, cart them up to London with you?”
He was being deliberately unhelpful, Maxine decided, because he didn’t want her to win the part, get famous, and leave him with the task of finding a new nanny. How selfish could a man be?
“Serena’s here,” she reminded him. “She isn’t doing anything tomorrow. Why can’t she look after the kids?”
“I’m not a kid,” declared Josh, wandering into the kitchen and looking cross. “I’m nine years old and a half. Maxine, we’re still hungry. Could you make some more peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches?”
“You aren’t a kid,” Maxine retaliated briskly. “You’re nine years old and a half, and I’m busy arguing with your father. Make your own horrible sandw
iches.”
“What are you arguing about?”
“I want to audition for a TV commercial.” Maxine looked sorrowful. “And your father won’t let me take the time off to do it.”
“How long does it take?”
She sighed. “Only a few hours.”
Josh’s eyes lit up with excitement. Turning to Guy, he said, “Oh Dad, say yes! If Maxine’s on television I can tell all my friends at school. They’ll be dead jealous… Please say she can go to the audition!”
Maxine crossed her fingers behind her back, assumed a saintly expression, and silently vowed never to tease Josh about Tanya Trevelyan again.
Guy, looking suspicious, addressed Josh. “Is this a setup? Did she tell you to come in here and say that?”
“No.” Bewildered, Josh said, “What’s a setup?”
“OK.” Returning his attention to Maxine, Guy said wearily, “But only if Serena agrees. And you’ll have to ask her yourself.”
Maxine could have kissed him. Instead, more prudently, she said, “Thank you thank you thank you,” flashed him a dazzling smile, and made a dash for the kitchen door before he could change his mind. “I’ll go and speak to her right away…”
Josh caught up with her at the top of the stairs.
“My angel,” cried Maxine, picking him up and showering kisses on his blond head.
“Yeeeuck!” said Josh. “Put me down. Kissing’s for sissies.”
“You were brilliant.”
“I know I was.” He wiped his hair, then grinned. “You aren’t the only one around here who can act, you know. Come on, Maxine. Hand over the ten pounds.”
• • •
It wasn’t that Serena actively disliked children; she had simply never found much use for them. An adored only child of parents who had themselves been only children, she had wanted for nothing and enjoyed their undivided attention to the full. Extended networks of brothers and sisters and cousins, as far as the young Serena could make out, only meant having to share your toys and wear hand-me-downs. And if there were four children in one family, she deduced, each child could only receive a quarter of the love. She couldn’t understand for the life of her why any parents should ever want more than one.
Those had been Serena’s thoughts throughout her own childhood. People change, however, and by the time she reached her early twenties, she had revised her opinions. The prospect of having to endure pregnancy in order to produce a baby had become more and more off-putting. Not only would it mean putting her career on hold for almost a year, but there was no surefire guarantee that you wouldn’t turn into a blimp and lose your figure for good. Besides, there was no rule that said you had to bear offspring anyway. She could go one better than having one child, she concluded happily. She needn’t have any at all.
And, as time passed, Serena looked around at her friends and saw that she had made absolutely the right decision. Children were expensive, time-consuming, and inconvenient. As for their table manners…well, they could be positively grotesque.
But then along had come Guy, a coveted catch by any standards, and Serena, who up until now had made a point of steering well clear of men with children, realized that he was simply too good an opportunity to pass up. Josh and Ella were something of a drawback, but at least there was no neurotic ex-wife lurking in the background. And Guy employed a full-time nanny, which Serena decided was another bonus. She wouldn’t actually be expected to look after them herself.
• • •
“Serena, Josh has got his toast jammed in the toaster and there’s all smoke coming out of it.”
Serena, who had been reading Harper’s Bazaar with her fingertips carefully splayed, suppressed a sigh of irritation. As children went, Ella and Josh weren’t bad—and their table manners, at least, were faultless—but they certainly knew how to pick their moments.
“Tell him to switch the toaster off,” she said. “I can’t do anything now. My nails are wet.”
Ella gazed enviously at Serena’s glistening nails, the exact color of pink bubble gum.
“Could you paint my nails for me?”
“Your father wouldn’t like that.”
“Daddy isn’t here. He’s in Holland.”
“I think you’re too young for nail polish.” Serena’s attention was drifting back to Galliano’s autumn collection. Darling John, one of her favorite designers, had such an eye for color and line. Those velvet jackets were divine…
“When your fingers are dry, will you do my hair in plaits then? With ribbons threaded through them?”
Serena raised her gaze from the glossy pages. Ella was shifting from foot to foot in front of her, looking hopeful.
“What?”
“With pink and white ribbons threaded all through them, like when Maxine does it for me.”
Serena had observed this ritual on numerous occasions during the past weeks. Even Maxine, with her practiced, nimble fingers, couldn’t complete the complicated procedure in less than twenty minutes.
“Sweetheart, your hair looks fine as it is,” she said in soothing tones. “It’s much prettier hanging loose. Now, why don’t you run back into the kitchen and tell Josh to switch off the toaster? Your father isn’t going to be very pleased if he sets the kitchen on fire.”
The result of such lack of interest was that by midafternoon Ella was deeply bored. Josh, addicted to computer games and taking full advantage of Maxine’s and Guy’s absences, was closeted in his bedroom with his beloved Game Boy, going glassy-eyed over Pokémon. Normally limited to thirty-minute sessions, he was in heaven. Guy always confiscated the batteries when half an hour was up. Maxine, even more infuriatingly, swiped the whole thing and started playing the game herself.
“Go away,” he told Ella, who was perched on the end of his bed kicking her heels.
“Can’t I have a turn?”
“No. I’ve got fourteen thousand points.”
Ella stuck out her bottom lip. “But, Jo-osh—”
“And stop kicking the bed; you’re making me blink.”
Ella kicked the bed harder. Josh, putting the game on pause, leaned across and shoved her onto the floor.
“Look, you make me blink, and I haven’t got time to blink. Just go away and leave me alone.”
“I hate you,” whined Ella, but Josh wasn’t going to be drawn into a fight. Fourteen thousand points was his highest score ever, and he had no intention of stopping now.
“Good,” he murmured as Ella flounced toward the bedroom door. “I hate you too.”
If she couldn’t have her hair in plaits and she couldn’t play with Josh, Ella decided, she should at least be allowed to buy sweets instead. It was only fair.
Serena, who had finished with Harper’s Bazaar, was now engrossed in the Tatler. Several of her more glamorous friends were featured in this month’s edition, and it was always fun seeing who’d been doing what. Even better, the fact that they were often caught unawares by the camera meant there was always the chance of spotting an unflattering expression, an exposed bra strap, even a lethal hint of a double chin…
“Can we go down to the shop and buy some sweets?”
Glancing up from the pages of Tatler, Serena saw that Ella was back. This time she was clutching a yellow purse shaped like a banana.
“Of course you can, darling.”
“I’ve got eighty pence.”
“How lovely.” Serena gave her a benevolent smile.
When she showed no sign of moving from the sofa, however, Ella tried again.
“Can we go now, please?”
As realization dawned, Serena’s smile faded. “Isn’t Josh going with you?”
“He won’t. He’s playing his stupid Game Boy game. It isn’t far away, though.” Ella gave her a pleading look. “And it’s stopped raining now, so we won’t get wet.”
&nbs
p; Trudging half a mile down a muddy lane overhung with dripping chestnut trees wasn’t Serena’s idea of fun, although it was gratifying to think that Ella wanted her company. “Thank you, darling,” she replied, her tone soothing, “but I’m not really in the mood for a walk right now. Maybe tomorrow.”
Ella was by this time thoroughly confused. Serena appeared to be saying no to the walk, but she hadn’t said no to the sweets. Desperate for Rolos and Maltesers, she said in hesitant tones, “Does that mean I can go down to the shop?”
“Of course you can,” Serena replied absently, her attention captured by a familiar face among the guests at a recent society wedding. Good heavens, she hadn’t seen Trudy Blenkarne for years, and now here she was, complete with nose job, collagen-inflated lips, and an ugly Texan husband to boot…
• • •
It absolutely wasn’t fair, thought Josh, shaking the Game Boy and willing the batteries to surge back to life. Just when there was nobody to stop him playing, they’d had to run out. And it was all Maxine’s fault, he decided crossly. She was the one who’d kept confiscating the game and playing it instead of doing the ironing. Now she’d used them up.
Feeling vaguely remorseful for having driven Ella away earlier, he went in search of her. His sister’s bedroom was empty, however, and when he got downstairs he found Serena alone in the sitting room, drinking orange juice and watching television.
“Oh,” said Josh, surprised. “I thought Ella was down here with you.”
A girl was rappelling down the side of a tall building. Serena, evidently enthralled, waited until she’d reached the ground before turning to smile at Josh.
“I’d probably be sick if I had to do that, wouldn’t you? No…I haven’t seen Ella for a while. Perhaps she’s upstairs.”
He frowned. “I’ve already looked in her room.”
“Oh well.” Serena shrugged, sipped her orange juice, and glanced up at the grandfather clock. “She’s around somewhere. Go find her, Josh, and ask her what she’d like to eat. It’s either fish cakes or poached eggs on toast.”