From London with Love

by Jemma Forte

  ‘Come,’ he shouted authoritatively.

  Kerry, his feisty celeb booker, poked her head round the door. ‘Hi, Mike,’ she said. ‘It’s gone two, just in case you hadn’t realized.’

  With the door now open, Mike could hear that the natives were getting restless, but he didn’t like the feeling that he was being told what to do by a member of his team.

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Kerry, I’m well aware of the time, but sometimes things come up that I have to deal with right away – unless, that is, you want to risk us not getting on air this week?’ he said, not even looking her way and concentrating instead on the screen as if what he was reading was a matter of vital importance. In fact, he was quickly scanning a reminder from M&S that there was twenty per cent off the Autograph collection as of Thursday.

  Having taken the hint, Kerry closed the door and Mike was left to ponder firstly whether to go for the V-neck or the crew-neck sweater and, secondly, how to handle his boss’s misgivings about last week’s show.

  Suddenly he felt a bit sorry for himself. There should be more passion and excitement in his life than he was getting at the moment. The strong, sexy career woman he’d married had disappeared and been replaced by someone who resembled early woman and who seemed to have forgotten how to shave her legs or give a blowjob. And now, instead of grabbing forty winks later, he’d probably spend the rest of the day feeling uneasy about the prospect of a meeting with David, who was always on his case about something. Mike knew he felt compelled to justify his huge salary, which was fine, but David was also aware that he and Diane had just had a baby and that things were a bit tough at home at the moment, so surely ‘Granddad’ could back off for a short while?

  Still, there wasn’t time to dwell on all of that now. It was time for the meeting, even though he knew the majority of his team resented having to down tools in order to listen to him vent his spleen. He knew because he’d heard them say as much, but he didn’t care. The meeting would remain a regular fixture (unless he had a lunch), whether there was anything important to convey or not, so he could remind everyone exactly who was boss. So if they didn’t like it, they could go fuck themselves. This burst of vitriol finally jet-propelled him into action. He leapt out of his chair and started gathering together what he needed for the meeting. It was seven minutes past two, time to get the show on the road.

  4

  Edward Granger let his script drop to the ground and reclined on his lounger, letting the afternoon sun’s strong rays shine fully on his face for a few lazy moments. He didn’t start shooting for months, so there was plenty of time for learning his lines anyway. He inhaled deeply, savouring the tangy aroma of Pacific Ocean salt that hung in the air, taking the edge off the extreme heat and refreshing the atmosphere, making it just about the healthiest lungful one could enjoy in California.

  From where he was sitting he had a perfect view of his magnificent, colonial-style mansion, sprawling landscaped gardens, enormous infinity pool and portion of beach that was exclusively his; one of the most sought-after pieces of Malibu real estate. Yet despite having been successful for over a quarter of a century now, his fame and fortune still never ceased to amaze him, a by-product of years spent struggling before landing his big break. When he had finally won the role of 007 he’d been pronounced an overnight success, the irony of which hadn’t passed him by. There was nothing overnight about the bars he’d worked in, the years spent labouring on construction sites, or how long it had taken to persuade his family that there was nothing ‘poncy’ about wanting to be an actor.

  Belching softly, Edward adjusted the waistband of his khaki sailing shorts, easing them off his distended stomach slightly. He’d had a delicious lunch but had eaten far more than his recommended calorie intake, even allowing himself a glass or two of fine Merlot to wash it down with. He felt rather guilty about this rare venture off his strictly managed culinary piste. In terms of getting back into shape for his next movie, he was cutting things fine. Then again, if you couldn’t indulge occasionally when approaching the age of sixty-five, frankly, what was the point? The roar from the ocean in front of him was immensely soothing, as was the feeling of the sun warming his bones, and soon he felt himself sliding towards a lovely soporific afternoon snooze.

  ‘Honey,’ squealed a voice, dragging him back to the here and now. Maybe if he ignored her she’d get the hint, he thought wistfully, knowing full well she wouldn’t.

  ‘Honey, put the umbrella back up. You know you shouldn’t have the sun shining directly on to your face and I bet you’re not wearing protection,’ chastised wife Betsey, who was undulating across the lawn towards him, ruining the moment completely.

  He sighed inwardly.

  ‘Are you even listening to me?’ she asked, bending over him, her tanned, pneumatic breasts in his direct line of vision, hoisted inside one of her many sports bras. This one was hot pink.

  ‘I could hardly not,’ Edward replied, but with enough affection in his voice for her to know he wasn’t angry. Betsey bent down and ruffled Edward’s thick thatch of silvery hair, which still possessed the faintest trace of blond. Then she picked up some lotion that was lying nearby, squirted some into her hand and proceeded to slather it on to his face, probably a case of too little too late given that he was already brown and weathered from years of outside shooting. The crinkles around his piercing blue eyes were another giveaway; not that they detracted from his handsome looks particularly, a huge and horrifically unfair advantage of simply being male. Edward blinked – Betsey had managed to get some lotion into his right eye and now it was stinging. Unaware of her husband’s discomfort, Betsey enthusiastically straddled him until she was sitting directly on his groin. He groaned, but only out of discomfort.

  ‘It’s day fifteen. My eggs are ripe and ready for in-se-mi-na-tion,’ she purred, oblivious to the fact that the second she’d mentioned her ‘eggs’, any chance she’d had of turning him on had vanished. ‘Come on, honey,’ she persisted, her bossy manner reminding Edward, not for the first time, of Miss Piggy. ‘Let’s go make love.’

  With the eye that wasn’t blurry and stinging like hell, Edward surveyed his second wife’s cleavage and silently grieved for the breasts they’d once been. She’d previously had a beautiful set of medium-sized, natural breasts which he’d only had to look at to feel blood flowing to the appropriate area. Yet Betsey had insisted on going under the knife and was now delighted with the results, presuming Edward was too, though, in truth, her new assets held zero appeal. He regarded them now, trying his best to summon up desire but failing miserably. They were perfect orbs, having been transformed from bosoms to tits, and nuzzling into them had somehow lost its appeal.

  ‘Well?’ said Betsey.

  Edward swallowed. ‘Maybe later, darling? A lie-down sounds wonderful, but I’ve just finished eating so I should probably digest … and I need to learn my lines,’ he added hastily.

  Betsey’s incredulous expression spoke volumes and Edward didn’t need to be told how middle-aged he’d sounded, yet rather begrudged having this held against him given that middle age had passed him by long ago. He sighed again, only too aware that Betsey was wondering how a red-blooded man could turn down sex on a plate from a nubile woman nearly half his age. He could see the all-too-familiar disappointment and frustration showing in her green eyes. Then he spotted his housekeeper, making her way towards them from the house across the lawn.

  ‘Ah, Consuela,’ he yelled gratefully, practically tipping Betsey off his lap and on to the grass. ‘You’re a mind-reader. Jill’s coming over later with my contract. Would it be OK if she joined us for dinner?’

  ‘Not a problem, Mr G. I was just coming to see if you wanted coffee,’ she replied, as a sulky-looking Betsey stomped past her in the opposite direction, pert, lycra-clad behind positively bristling with resentment, muttering loudly to herself, ‘Digest … I’ll give you freaking digest …’

  Edward exchanged a long-suffering look with his loyal maid, who chuc
kled and rolled her eyes heavenwards.

  ‘Coffee would be great. I’ll come and get it in a bit,’ said Edward. Consuela headed back to the house.

  Alone once more, Edward sat up and fiddled with the parasol. His previous good mood had vanished, for he knew he couldn’t blame this lack of interest in what was once his all-time favourite occupation squarely at the feet of Betsey’s bosoms. His legendary sex drive had been on the wane for a while now, but if before it had been staggering about like an old drunk, then it had finally been knocked out altogether when, from nowhere, Betsey had done the most enormous about-turn on their original joint decision not to have children. She’d announced her change of heart six months ago, as casually as if she was talking about buying a new lipstick, and it had come as a terrible shock. Why on earth would she want to be impregnated with his ancient sperm?

  Since then, Betsey had become obsessed. Not a day went by when Edward couldn’t tell you what day of her cycle she was on, what her temperature was, and whether or not her discharge resembled egg white, all of which he found baffling and faintly repulsive. Meanwhile, she seemed determined to continue ignoring his protests, as if his words were a mere buzzing in her ear. At times he felt like a fly trapped in a room, repeatedly banging itself against a window pane.

  Feeling irked, Edward retrieved his reading glasses from the table next to him, picked up his script and found the next scene. The dialogue was terribly banal, which only depressed him further; especially when he realized that here was yet another scene that required him to take his shirt off.

  ‘Dad!’

  Edward shaded his face with his hand just in time to see his beloved daughter coming round the side of the house towards him. One interruption at least that was more than welcome. His heart swelled with affection as it did every time he set eyes on her. Today she was wearing a denim skirt, with a plain white vest and flat, jewelled sandals, a silver bracelet on her wrist her only jewellery. She looked divine.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ Jessica panted, having run the rest of the way across the lawn, so desperate was she to cool off in the pool. She was already pulling off her skirt and shoes, until she was wearing only her top and underwear. ‘You don’t mind, do you? It’s just I’m so hot, I can’t be bothered to get my costume.’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ he said smoothly in his quintessentially English voice. ‘You’re home early, aren’t you? I thought you were working at the gallery today.’

  But Jessica had already flopped into the pool. Small air bubbles came to the surface as she swam a length underwater, and when she reappeared at the other end she swept her hair off her face and blew water out of her nose before replying. ‘I was supposed to be, which is what I need to talk to you about. Where’s Betsey?’

  ‘Working out,’ Edward replied, glancing over to the house where he could see her through the glass doors, contorting herself into the most alarming positions as she practised her yoga.

  Jessica resurfaced from the bottom of the pool again and gasped for air. ‘She’s exercising a lot at the moment, isn’t she?’ she asked before swimming to the side, where she pulled herself up and clambered out.

  ‘Mmm,’ murmured Edward vaguely, peering down his pale pink shirt at the small pool of sweat that had gathered in the middle of his chest. It was true; the more frustrated Betsey grew sexually, the more she exercised. What a shame he couldn’t hire someone in to see to her needs, he thought ruefully, a wry smile spreading across his handsome features as he even considered such an outrageous idea.

  Jessica grabbed one of the numerous white fluffy towels that were piled up on a table by the pool and dried off her legs, which, like her father’s, were covered in freckles. With her fine blonde hair, looks-wise Jessica was the polar opposite of her sultry mother. She was very much her father’s daughter. It was his fair skin she was wrapped in, his blue eyes she’d inherited and his features she wore on her face, though they didn’t fall into their place quite as effortlessly as his did. What looked handsome on a man looked slightly more ordinary on a girl and Jessica had also inherited his robust frame, though she kept her figure trim with plenty of exercise.

  ‘Anyway, what did you want to talk about?’

  Jessica drew up one of the loungers, making a huge puddle on the cushions as she did so, and plonked herself down. Searching for the right words, she frowned. ‘Dad, I found out you were the “mystery” buyer at the gallery who bought the entire show,’ she said evenly and only then did her face display the betrayal she was feeling.

  Edward’s jaw dropped. Then, realizing he’d been well and truly rumbled, he opened his mouth to begin explaining. Jessica cut him off. ‘Don’t. I know you only do these things because you love me, but you will never understand how stupid I felt knowing that everyone at the gallery knew except me.’

  Edward was maddened to feel himself blushing. Damn it. How the hell had she found out?

  ‘I told you from the start I didn’t want anyone to know who I was and that I wanted to do things on my own for once, so why did you do it?’ his daughter demanded, her voice cracking.

  ‘Because you were miserable?’ offered Edward rather feebly. ‘You said your boss was really grumpy so I thought I’d help.’

  ‘But I wasn’t miserable,’ said Jessica in frustration. ‘I was freaking elated. I couldn’t believe that someone was being grumpy with me because no one ever is, and if you must know it made me feel excited that here was an opportunity to win someone round simply by working hard.’

  Edward swallowed. He’d never seen Jessica this vexed before.

  ‘And besides,’ she said, wringing water out of her vest, ‘you make it sound as if I was asking for your help, when I wasn’t. I was just telling you about my day, which clearly I’m going to have to stop doing in case you muscle in again.’

  ‘Bloody James bloody Bond to the rescue again, eh?’ said Edward jokily.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Jessica, sounding more sad than angry, ‘which is how it’s been pretty much my entire life. I was actually thinking about it on the way over here, about all the times you’ve waded in to “save” me. Do you remember when we first got here and I was struggling to make friends at my new elementary school?’

  ‘Y-e-s,’ replied Edward nervously as he tried to recall what parental crime he may have committed all those years ago.

  ‘So, rather than just letting me make friends in my own time, you insisted on inviting the whole year to a Christmas party at our house, and spent I don’t know how much money on turning it into a Winter Wonderland. Suddenly I had more friends than I knew what to do with, which as far as you were concerned was problem solved. Only most of them weren’t my real friends, they just wanted to come to my house again. Then, at high school,’ Jessica ploughed on, not giving Edward any opportunity to defend himself, ‘I must have mentioned that I was a bit disappointed not to make the cheerleading squad and what happened next?’

  Edward shrugged meekly.

  ‘That’s right – you donated a huge amount of money to the school for new sports equipment, flew back from wherever you were shooting at the time, turned up to school in your Aston Martin and flirted like mad with my teachers. Then, hey, by some miracle I made the squad. But that’s the thing,’ said Jessica, realizing that the floodgates had now been opened and that she was powerless to prevent years of hurt and embarrassment hurtling through. ‘While all these things you do are really sweet and generous, they also leave me no room to do anything for myself, like most people have to. My life isn’t a film, Dad, and without sounding horribly ungrateful I’m afraid the only thing I really want or need saving from is you.’

  Edward recoiled.

  ‘OK, I don’t mean that,’ said Jessica, instantly regretting the harshness of her words. ‘But you are the ultimate embarrassing parent.’

  ‘Really?’ said Edward doubtfully.

  ‘Really,’ replied Jessica firmly. ‘I’m not like Dulcie or Paris or Nicole. I hate the limelight and, to be honest, would love, just for
once, to have a chat or a job for that matter, without James freaking Bond always having to come into it.’

  ‘Right,’ said Edward, feeling like a prat and nowhere near as slick as he did in his films. ‘Well, I can see why you might feel that way.’

  ‘I’m not happy,’ Jessica said tentatively and suddenly Edward didn’t want her to get to the point.

  ‘Not happy?’ he said jovially, gesturing to their luxurious surroundings, the azure blue sky and the jug of iced tea that was sitting in front of them, willing itself to be poured, but Jessica ploughed on.

  ‘All this is because of you,’ Jessica said cautiously. She looked Edward squarely in the eye. ‘I’ve never had to do anything on my own, Dad, but it’s time I did because otherwise how am I ever going to figure out what it is I want to do in life, or what I’m actually capable of? At the moment I just don’t have any real purpose and every time I try and do something, either it’s come about because you’re my father, or if not, you get involved anyway, which makes it all feel a bit … pointless.’

  Edward studied his daughter’s earnest face and his heart swelled with a pang of painful love. Jessica was such a good girl, always had been, despite a rather unconventional upbringing. Still, as much as he wanted to keep her close by for the rest of his days, to protect and look after her, that obviously wasn’t what she wanted any more.

  He considered his next move very carefully. ‘That fundraiser last month?’ he began steadily, his deep voice masking how disconcerted he was feeling. ‘Jen Petersen said your organizational skills were remarkable and that without you they never would have raised as much money or got so many young people involved.’