by Jules Wake
‘Absolutely not m’dear. Let me give you a hand with those dishes.’
‘No, you can’t do that. You’re a guest … sort of,’ Angela added for Carrie’s benefit, ‘Richard asked if I’d give Phil something to eat. It seemed a shame for him to sit out in the car. I invited him in.’
‘Which doesn’t make me a guest at all.’ Phil stood up, slipped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. ‘He’s a nice lad. Not like the girl, Sierra, or whatever she’s called. Where’s that washing-up liquid then?’
‘There is a dishwasher,’ said Angela.
‘Even better. I’m a dab hand at stacking one of those fellows.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was almost easy to believe that this was a perfectly normal evening with drivers in the kitchen and a heart throb at the table, sitting outside in the balmy heat.
Carrie studied Richard as now he chatted easily to Angela, complimenting her on the delicious beef and asking how she’d cooked it and drawing out her interest in cooking. He was as smooth as a talk-show host.
Jade hung on every word, her hunger for celebrity gossip and inside news sated for the time being.
Carrie swallowed, trying to analyse the nugget of dissatisfaction. What had she expected? When he’d first arrived, a frisson crackled between them, lively with heat and fire as the memories of a different life had flooded her, but it had ebbed and faded. Like a chameleon Richard had fitted in and the conversation had stayed safe and bland. Nothing important was touched upon in the conversation and no one referred to any tricky topics.
Under the table she fiddled with her napkin, concertin-aing it into a series of folds, pressing firmly. Why the hell had he come? As if hearing her thoughts, he glanced up and his smile faltered as he saw the expression on her face, but with another question from Angela it slid back into place, which irritated Carrie even more.
Suddenly the situation seemed utterly absurd. This man from her past, sitting here holding court, pretending he was an ordinary person, while opening a door on another world that should remain shut to them, acting all the while as if he hadn’t ripped her heart out. Pretending they were old friends rather than man and wife, married in haste because they couldn’t live without each other, except it turned out he could. Very easily.
She frowned, needing to remind herself that this wasn’t real. She, Jade and Angela were ordinary people, with ordinary lives that needed to be got on with. She and Alan had a future, a path as clear and steady as the one he was no doubt cycling along. After a hard day’s cycling he would be taking it easy after a cold bath and a big meal of pasta, settling down with a good book. Making the most of his holiday before the term started again. She didn’t want these reminders of what used to be.
‘Do you think you could get me into the club in St Tropez?’ Jade asked, ‘My friend Eliza says George Clooney and Beyoncé hang out there. Do you know him? Although he’s well old now.’
‘What, George? Yeah, I’ve met him a couple of times. I was in talks with him about a possible project. He’s doing a lot more directing these days. Nice guy.’
Carrie scowled at the casual name-dropping and wished Richard wouldn’t pander to Jade.
‘And have you been to Les Caves du Roy?’ She turned to her mother. ‘That’s the hippest night club in St Tropez, with resident DJ Jack-E. I bet it’s banging. I’d love to go there.’ Her wistful look was about as unsubtle as a bagful of sledgehammers.
‘I think you might be underage,’ said Richard, exchanging a discreet smile with Angela, ‘And the crowd can be a little wild in there. I’m not sure it would be suitable.’
Jade pouted. ‘I go to plenty of clubs at home.’
Carrie had a pretty good idea that the school socials, sans alcohol, she was used to, had about as much in common with a sophisticated French night spot as a donkey did with a thoroughbred racehorse.
‘It’d be wicked if I could get in. Think what I’d tell my friends.’
Richard laughed. ‘No dice, sweetheart. Your Mum would kill me.’
‘Huh,’ she turned to Angela, ‘Things are different now. You don’t understand.’
‘I doubt you’d get in,’ said Richard kindly. ‘And the drinks are ferociously expensive in there.’
‘I would if I went with you. Seriously, my life is dead. I never have any fun. Living with you two.’
Richard’s stern expression, a gentle but clear rebuke, surprisingly halted Jade’s complaints.
‘Sorry, but it’s frustrating being so near and not being able to see any celebrities.’
‘That’s told you,’ Carrie chipped in.
‘Oh God, I didn’t mean you. Obvs you’re a celebrity but …’
‘I don’t have quite the same cachet as George or P Diddy,’ finished Richard.
‘I don’t know what cashay is, but you know what I mean.’
Richard gave Angela a quick glance. ‘If … and only if, your Mum’s in agreement. I’m thinking about throwing a party on one of the yachts in the harbour in St Tropez for the cast and crew, in a couple of weeks’ time. If you behave, brat, I could send you an invitation.’
‘You’re shitting me. OMG. Will Savannah Murphy be there?’ Jade jumped up and threw her arms around his neck, her body jerking with excitement. ‘I’ll be good for the rest of my life.’
‘Please Mum. Please. Please say I can go.’
‘The invitation would be for all three of you, of course.’
Smooth, thought Carrie acidly, very smooth.
Abruptly she pushed her chair back.
‘I’ll go and make some coffee.’
‘No, I’ll do it,’ protested Angela half-rising from her seat.
‘It’s fine.’ Carrie marched off, now cross with herself for being cross and letting it show.
Crashing about in the kitchen didn’t make things any better, instead it brought home how childish she was being and not understanding why made it even worse.
She assumed Richard still took his coffee the same way and she certainly wasn’t about to ask him. She paused over the sugar. They’d both taken their coffee black with two sugars then. She’d stopped sweetening hers ages ago. He probably had to. She’d give him that concession.
When she carried the tray out, Angela, sensitive to her sister’s nuances, suggested that Richard and Carrie migrate to the veranda outside the lounge while she and Jade did some tidying up. A quelling glance killed Jade’s protests and with well-meaning corralling, Carrie ended up on one of the rattan armchairs next to Richard.
The chairs on this separate veranda had been arranged at right angles, allowing a view out over the hill but also to talk to a companion. The ideal spot to start a difficult conversation.
Lights grouped in clumps across the hillside below reminded her of constellations of stars, a ragged line down to the left, a cloud shape on the right and over there a single solitaire shining brilliantly.
‘I didn’t know if you took sugar any more,’ she said as he took a sip of coffee.
‘I’d forgotten I used to. Is that what you’re cross about. Or is it because I said Jade could come to the party?’
‘Who said I was cross?’ She deliberately resisted the compelling urge to fold her arms across her chest, instead feigning an open-body posture as if she were totally relaxed. ‘Although I don’t think you should encourage Jade like that.’
‘Why not? It will give her some major bragging rights and it’s no problem.’
‘Not to you.’
‘And how is it to you, Miss Crosspatch?’
He had her there.
‘I’m not cross.’
He leaned forward and rubbed at the spot between her eyebrows. ‘Still a dead giveaway.’
She pushed his hand away. ‘Don’t be stupid. They’re age lines.’
Richard laughed. ‘Because you’re ancient.’
‘I’m definitely older and wiser,’ she sighed. ‘Which brings me rather neatly to …’
‘To what?’
> ‘Oh come on, Richard, don’t be obtuse.’
‘That’s a great word isn’t it? Obtuse. Layered with meaning. It sounds less insulting than coming straight out and saying ‘stupid’, but if you think about it, it’s even more insulting.’
‘You’re not flipping preparing a role here and analysing your character,’ snapped Carrie, flashing her eyes at him, shocked at the sudden but very definite impulse to slap him. Extreme, perhaps, but her hands itched to do it. She could almost imagine the surprise on his face. It would jolt him out of this ‘I’m comfortable and in command of the situation,’ and a thousand times better than this awful sitting-on-the-precipice sensation. She didn’t want to be the one to launch herself off. He should be the bloody awkward, out-of-place and uneasy one, not swanning in charming her relatives with promises of glamorous A-list parties and pretending that everything was normal.
As he turned his head away, taking advantage of the diversion of the view, she saw his jaw tighten.
Good. Her fist clenched on her thigh, waiting for him to resume the conversation. The silence stretched out. The bastard was going to make her do the work.
‘Richard,’ she started.
He turned to face her, one eyebrow lifting. Was it amusement or derision?
‘Lovely as it has been to take this trip down memory lane, it’s also time that we got around to getting divorced.’
‘It probably is,’ agreed Richard, who then turned away to continue his contemplation of the view and didn’t say another word.
She wanted to shake him. ‘Why did you come tonight?’
‘Curiosity, I guess.’
It hurt more than it should. A lot more.
‘Well, now your curiosity’s been assuaged, perhaps we can discuss the mechanics of the process.’
‘Did you ever wonder if things might have worked out if we’d done them differently?’ Richard’s words almost sounded absent, as if it were some philosophical question.
‘No,’ said Carrie, quashing the opposite thoughts that danced up and down in her head, saying yes, yes, yes. ‘It never would have worked. We were far too young. Children still. We wanted different things out of life. You were much more ambitious than me.’
He swung around, his eyes fierce with some emotion she couldn’t identify. ‘Me more ambitious? That’s not the way I remember it. You were always ambitious. We both were. I always thought that’s why we understood each other so well.’
Carrie stared hard at the cloud-shaped collection of lights. ‘I grew up. Discovered more important priorities.’
‘You never gave us a chance you know.’
‘I beg your pardon.’ Slapping him had taken second place to pushing him off the balcony.
‘You bailed, at the first opportunity.’
‘I bailed,’ her voice quivered, ‘Excuse me. You were the one that went to Hollywood.’
‘Yes.’ He sounded angry now. How dare he? What right did he have to be angry? He was the one who left and never came back.
‘With your support. You were the one who said I had to take the chance.’
‘Oh and you weren’t at all keen?’
‘Of course I bloody well was. I’d seen one chance slip out of my fingers, I wasn’t going to miss a second one. Remember what my mum said.’
Carrie did. It had been their mantra. Unbidden, the words came to her lips. ‘Be like a terrier, shake every last opportunity to death.’
‘Yes.’ His expression sobered and for a moment they were both silent, as if remembering the horrible night when Josie Maddox’s light went out for the last time. Richard’s mum had always believed he’d succeed and, while she was alive, shielded him from his dad’s scepticism that acting wasn’t a real job.
‘Once I was in Hollywood, there was no way I was going to let go. Mum always believed I’d do it. I couldn’t let her down.’ He turned urgent eyes her way. ‘But you were in complete agreement that it was the right thing to do. You pushed as much as I did. You were the one who said I had to go. I thought you wanted it as much as I did.’
Shame-faced, Carrie ducked her head. That was love for you. Ambitious for herself, she’d understood how important it was for him. That last morning at the airport, when they’d clung to each other, she’d been the one who had to do the smart-talking. Talk him into letting go and walking through passport control. She’d been fierce with ambition for him.
‘You never came out.’ The bald statement laden with accusation made her stomach flip.
Carrie winced. ‘I couldn’t.’ She took refuge in indignant rebuttal, ignoring the twin trammels of guilt and regret. ‘You knew that. Being in the theatre for a six-month run. I couldn’t say, I won’t be in this weekend I’m popping over to the West Coast to see my …’
‘Husband?’
Coldness settled in her stomach. A husband should have been important enough. For the first time the word carried the weight that she hadn’t given it at the time.
‘It’s all by the by now, anyway. We should have got divorced ages ago.’
‘Why didn’t we?’ asked Richard, his voice so quiet she had to strain to hear it.
‘Because it didn’t suit your career the last time we spoke about it.’ A strained trans-Atlantic phone call, where much had been said but nothing at all.
‘I remember it differently.’ Richard’s jaw tightened.
She didn’t want to go there.
‘I’ve met someone. He wants to marry me.’ There was absolutely no point going into the whys and wherefores now.
Richard’s smile wasn’t kind. ‘And do you want to marry him?’
How did he do that? Place some great import on the irrelevance of the way she’d phrased it. ‘Yes.’
‘So, it’s rather lucky we ran into each other.’
‘I didn’t exactly know how to track you down.’
‘You knew where my agent was.’
‘He’s not exactly my best friend.’
‘He’s not mine either. He’s my agent. He looks after my career, not my love life.’
‘You could have fooled me.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘When you were first in the States, he wasn’t that great at passing on messages.’
‘Film locations aren’t always that handy for communication.’
Without realising it, Carrie had crossed her arms.
‘What’s he like? Your fiancé.’
‘He’s very nice. Lovely. Kind. A cyclist.’ Why did she say that?
‘What, like in the Tour de France?’ Richard sounded impressed.
‘Not professional, but that type of road-racing, yes.’
‘Must be super-fit.’
Carrie’s mouth twisted as she pictured Alan standing next to some elite athlete, half the size and stature.
‘Yes, he is.’
‘And do you cycle together? You went everywhere on that rattletrap thing with the wicker basket on the front when we were students.’
‘God, I’d forgotten about that. I was heartbroken when we left and moved to London and we couldn’t fit it in the van.’
‘And you left that note in the basket.’ He shook his head, as if still wondering at her foolishness.
‘Please look after this trusty steed, her name is Flo …’
‘… and watch the back brake, it has a tendency to work loose.’
They both fell silent.
‘I ought to round up Phil. It’s past his bedtime.’
‘Yes but …’
Carrie didn’t know what to say. Suddenly the task of getting a divorce seemed enormous and not quite as simple as posting a few papers.
She hadn’t anticipated the huge sense of relief that came when Richard said, ‘Look, why don’t we meet for lunch tomorrow?’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Carrie turned over again, kicking at the deliciously weightless cotton sheets and cursing the light streaming in from the edges of the blinds. Another tangled dream. One of a series of dreams th
at had run into each other. Her pesky subconscious had a lot to answer for. The colours were fixed firmly in her head. Richard, in a bright-yellow jersey, cycling, legs pumping indefatigably, up a mountain leading the Tour de France while Alan trailed, a disconsolate expression on his face, at the back of the pack on the mountain stage. The rather obvious and unkind symbolism wasn’t lost on her. Sighing and punching her pillow, she turned again, her back to the morning sunshine.
It was no good. She was awake, well and truly wide awake and unable to get last night’s conversation out of her head. The words circled in her head like a nasty hangover. One, like all hangovers, she fully deserved. Honesty compelled her to admit her memory had conveniently used the years to paper over the facts, her improved version of events making it easier to hold him wholly responsible for them going their separate ways. The resulting bitter anger had insulated her sense of failure and helped her move on. It took a while to recover from a broken heart. How much longer would it have taken if she’d acknowledged that the break was as much her own fault as his?
But that was all in the past and it didn’t mean, she decided, clenching her jaw, that it had to impact on the future.
She lay looking up at the ceiling and, with an exasperated huff, threw her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. Six o’clock! That wasn’t getting-up time on holiday. She thought of all the times during term-time when she had to drag her sorry carcass out of bed at seven. Life wasn’t fair.
Her laptop mocked her from the dressing table. She’d yet to open the document with the play. Coffee. And work. She might as well make the most of this unforgiving hour. For some cosmically funny joke in some realm of the universe, her brain was at its most fertile at this time of day but her body refused to co-operate. For once, she’d harness some of the ideas and attempt to wrestle them into submission by gluing her backside into the chair. But first coffee. And she needed to retrieve her hair slides in the daylight. She hoped they hadn’t gone in the pool.