But somehow, what seemed okay in a London alley didn’t seem appropriate in conservative Peasebrook. There would be consequences to being caught. A city was anonymous. Here in a small provincial town, wanton behavior would be frowned upon. She could imagine the gossip already.
Still, Bea was never one to resist a challenge. When they went upstairs to bed, she rummaged in her underwear drawer and took out her best Coco de Mer satin bra and knickers, pulled her Louboutins out of the cupboard, and slipped into the bathroom to get changed. She put on red lipstick, back-combed her hair slightly, and slid into her femme fatale combo.
She sashayed into the bedroom and stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, with a wicked smile.
“Oi!” she said. Bill was lying under the covers, eyes closed.
“Oi!” she said, louder.
She thought she saw his eyelids flicker. She frowned. She walked over to the bed, picked up his hand, and put it between her legs, letting his fingers feel the warmth of the silk.
He rolled over, mumbling, and pulled his hand away.
Her mouth dropped open. Never, in all the time she had known him, had Bill turned down an opportunity. She sat down on the bed, looking down at the bright red shoes with the pencil-thin heels and the spaghetti-thin ankle straps, thinking how many times he’d watched her in them, eyes laughing as she walked toward him.
She didn’t know whether to be cross or hurt or puzzled.
13
June had taken the press release about Mick Gillespie home.
She poured herself a glass of cool Viognier and sat at the kitchen table to look at it.
His thick hair was now white and cropped close to his head. Those infamous slate blue eyes had no doubt been hand-tinted to enhance that hypnotic gaze. His face was carefully airbrushed to emphasize his bone structure, with just a few judicious laughter lines left, because it would be silly to pretend he was wrinkle free at his age—whatever that was exactly, but older than her, certainly. He’d kept his exact age shrouded in mystery for so long, but now, it seemed, his venerable years were a useful marketing tool rather than something to be hidden. An opportunity to monetize his dotage.
His autobiography had been much heralded in the press. There would be countless television and radio appearances, for despite his advancing years, Mick (or Michael, as everyone now called him) was good airtime. He was guaranteed to make an outrageous remark or drop a piece of juicy gossip. His lawyers were always on standby, but he was clever. Hints and innuendoes hadn’t landed him in court yet, largely because what he claimed was grounded in truth. The lilting accent had long gone, replaced by a Shakespearean/Hollywood hybrid delivered with mellifluous perfection and just the merest hint of Kerry. His voice was famous: from a whisper to a mighty roar, it was instantly recognizable.
His book promised a searing exposé of his entire career, complete with every dalliance and indiscretion he’d ever had. The lawyers had been through it with a fine-tooth comb, and it was said there were many women waiting in trepidation for its release. It was destined to fly off the shelves, for not only were its contents shocking, but it was remarkably well written. Witty and observant and colorful. The rumor was he hadn’t employed a ghostwriter, but had been responsible for every single word himself.
June didn’t doubt it. He’d always had the gift of gab. She imagined him in his Hampstead conservatory scrawling out his bons mots while a discreet assistant brought him coffee, then wine, then brandy later in the day.
June reflected that if he wrote as well as he talked, then he was a gifted writer indeed.
She put a hand to her heart to feel how fast it was beating. After all this time, he was coming to Peasebrook. To Nightingale Books.
Maybe she shouldn’t have suggested it to Emilia. Nightingale Books was the place June felt happiest in the world. She’d had no hesitation about stepping in to help Julius when he started deteriorating, for she worshipped him, too. He had filled a void in her life. Not romantically at all, but intellectually. And socially. They’d often enjoyed a drink out or supper together or gone to concerts. He was her absolute dearest friend at a difficult time. Retirement had been tougher than she thought. She was a hugely successful businesswoman, and to go from schmoozing and wheeling and dealing to doing almost nothing had been a massive shock. And moving to the cottage that had been her weekend retreat had been strange. It took a long time for it to feel like a permanent home. She still sometimes felt as if she should be packing up on a Sunday night, ready to drive back to London.
She loved her cottage, though. The wall-to-wall shelves, groaning with the tomes that had seen her through two failed marriages and several dodgy affairs. She read voraciously, and the cottage was perfect for that, whether tucked up in front of a log fire or sitting in the garden with a glass of wine. She scanned the bestseller lists, flagged up reviews in the newspapers, and every week she would pop into Nightingale Books for the latest biography or prizewinning novel.
She’d seen Mick Gillespie’s book previewed in the Sunday Times. She simultaneously longed and dreaded to read it.
She’d tried to forget him. Time had betrayed her. It hadn’t been a great healer at all. It had made no difference. She had tried a million different distractions. Other men. Drink. Drugs, once or twice (it had been the sixties, after all). Charity work. Australia. Then, eventually, a kind of release. Two husbands. And motherhood. That had helped her heal. But her boys were off and gone, though they would be back eventually when they’d found wives and had children. The cottage would come into its own then.
The memories were still there, vivid. It had started as a dream come true: a silly competition, to become the “legs” of an exciting new brand of tights—a necessity as hemlines grew shorter and shorter. Little June Agnew had won and convinced herself she was going to be propelled into a lucrative modeling career, hurled from oblivion in Twickenham to a giddy life of glamour. Through it she had got an agent, Milton (who appeared from nowhere, but was extremely kind and helpful), who had changed her name from June to Juno and told her she was going to be a star.
With her white-blond hair and huge eyes and skinny, endless legs, Juno was the queen of miniskirts and kinky boots and white plastic macs, all sugar-pink lipstick and spidery false lashes. There was money (to her it seemed a fortune, but now she knew that other people had been creaming it off and just giving her the bare minimum), a Chelsea flat-share, parties, cameras, late nights—and then a screen test. Everyone had gone into ecstasies. She was, it seemed, a natural. And she had to admit it came easy to her. She memorized the lines they gave her, and pretended. It seemed that was how easy acting was. She could sense Milton’s excitement and the stakes getting higher. She was told to watch her weight and her behavior, and had to have her hair done every morning before she left the flat.
Milton told her to be patient. The big jobs would come. But she had to do the small ones first. He got her a job on The Silver Moon, a sweepingly lush romantic film set on the west coast of Ireland, about a young girl who gets pregnant by the local aristocrat and wreaks her revenge. The script was by an acclaimed playwright, and the director was renowned for savagely beautiful productions. Mick Gillespie was the star. Juno was to play the barmaid in the local pub. She had two lines.
Juno had devoured the script and loved it. She dreamed about the actress playing the heroine getting pneumonia, and them casting Juno, because they’d spotted her talent. The actress remained robustly healthy throughout. But Mick Gillespie noticed her. He noticed her, all right.
In Ireland, she’d never known rain like it. It was there all the time. Yet it was soft. It was like having your skin kissed endlessly.
“Does it ever stop?” she asked him and he laughed.
“Not in my lifetime.”
And the smell. She loved the smell of the burning peat that sharpened the damp. And the colors, smudgy and muted, everything in soft focus, as if
you’d forgotten your glasses.
He lent her his cream Aran sweater. It swamped her, but in it she felt safe and loved and special. She wore it to the pub with jeans, her hair tousled and not a scrap of makeup, and they sat by the fire with glasses of Guinness, and she thought she had never been happier. She wanted time to stop.
And then, on the last day, her dream was ripped apart. She had been so sure of them that it came as a huge shock. She had assumed they would carry on. There had been no indication this was temporary.
He was standing behind her on the cliff, his arms wrapped around her. She fitted just under his chin. The wind was buffeting at them, but he was strong and sure, so she didn’t fear falling. Everything was gray: the clouds, the sky, the rocks. As gray as Donegal tweed, apart from the white-tipped waves, which were as skittish and playful as overfed horses, chasing each other to shore, kicking up their tails.
“Well,” said Mick. “It’s been fun, all right.”
“It has,” she replied, thinking he meant the shoot.
“Ah well.” His voice was tinged with regret.
“We can always come back another time.” She put her hands over his. “Mrs. Malone would always make us welcome, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Malone was the landlady of the guesthouse they’d been billeted in.
She felt him tense as she leaned farther into him.
“Darling,” he said, and she felt her heart plummet. “There won’t be another time. This is it.”
She whirled round to face him.
“What?”
He had a strange smile on his face. “You must understand. You know the rules. Didn’t anyone tell you, when you signed up for the film?”
“Tell me what?” She was confused.
“This is just a . . .” He searched for the words. He found one, but he could sense she wouldn’t like it. “You know.”
“A you know?”
He shrugged. “Fling?”
She stepped back. He reached out to pull her back. They were very near the cliff edge.
“Fling.” She could barely say the word.
“You knew that!” His eyes were screwed up in consternation.
She shook her head.
“What did you think this was?”
She could hardly breathe. She took in gulps of air to quell her panic. She clutched her middle. It felt as if a surgeon had gone in with a knife and was cutting out her vital organs. No anesthetic. The pain burned in her gullet.
“Darlin’, darlin’, darlin’ . . .” He put a concerned hand on her shoulder. “Come on, now.”
She flung his hand away. “Get off.”
“There’s no need for this. We’ve one last night. Let’s make the most of it.”
She ran. She ran and ran and ran, through the rain, down the cliff, down to the road. They had one more scene to shoot, but she didn’t care. The whole film could go to hell.
She stumbled along the road. The mist was closing in, filling her lungs with its viscosity.
She pulled at his sweater as she ran, tugging it over her head, hurling it into the fuchsia bushes, until she was just in the long-sleeved vest she’d worn to stop it scratching. She’d left everything behind. Her purse. Nearly all her clothes.
She stopped at the crossroads, a crooked signpost giving her a choice.
A car drew up. It was the makeup girl.
“Get in, sweetheart.” Juno just hugged herself tighter. “Come on! You’re miles from anywhere and you’ll catch your death. I’ll take you back to my place.”
The girl made her retrieve the sweater from the bushes, then went to fetch Juno’s things from her digs. She put Juno to sleep on her sofa with a spare blanket. Juno didn’t sleep but got up early to catch a bus to the airport, where she took the first flight back to London so she didn’t have to travel with the rest of them. She hid in her flat for days, until Milton came to dig her out. He’d got the whole sorry story from someone else on the shoot. She was mortified, humiliated, and swore she would never leave the flat again.
She was gaunt and had lost her sparkle. She couldn’t get the chill out of her bones from getting soaked when she ran away, and she feared she would never feel warm again. Her fingers had chilblains, but the pain of them was nothing compared to the empty gnawing inside her.
She’d been living off the money from The Silver Moon. She’d been frugal, but now there was nothing left. For a moment, panic overruled pain. But actually, she decided, she didn’t care. She would starve to death in her flat. At least then the horrible feeling would go.
“Do you want my advice?” asked Milton. “Go and do a secretarial course. Everyone needs a good typist. Even me. Actually, especially me. Go and learn typing and shorthand and I’ll give you a job.”
She stared at him. She supposed he was being kind, but did he know what he was suggesting? One moment she was on a trajectory to stardom and had found love. Now she had come crashing down and her agent wanted her to be his typist?
She had no fight left in her to tell him what she thought. She should be screaming at him to get her back in the loop, to get her some auditions. But she could see her reflection in the mirror on the wall. Gone was the luminous bombshell with the glowing skin and the eyes filled with promise. In her place was a bag of bones, with lackluster hair and a blank gaze. Who would employ her looking like this?
“And for heaven’s sake,” added Milton. “Eat something. In fact, come for lunch with me.”
He took her to a tiny Italian restaurant on the corner and filled her up with pasta and bread and creamy pudding.
She felt a little stronger when she finished. Starving was a miserable business. So miserable that she did as Milton suggested and signed up for a secretarial course. She was guaranteed employment at the end of six weeks, as long as she attended every lesson and practiced every night. And she went back to being plain June Agnew.
She’d done all right for herself. She had gone back to work for Milton. She’d become his right-hand girl, and then realized that there were many Miltons who needed a right hand in the office to organize their lives, so she left him to set up her own agency, providing top-notch administrative staff, and the agency had grown and grown. She’d retired three years ago, handing the reins over to two of her sons. She had plenty of money, plenty of friends, and was as happy as anyone had the right to be.
She had unfinished business, though.
She looked back down at the press release, and it hadn’t changed. She could remember those eyes burning into her as if it were yesterday. She hadn’t really entertained the thought that she might ever see him again. Of course, she might have passed him on a street in London, or spied him across a crowded restaurant one day. But he’d fallen right into her lap. She wouldn’t sleep between then and now.
For heaven’s sake, she told herself. You’re not a skinny little wannabe actress anymore, and he’s an old man. Get over yourself.
14
It had taken Andrea a few weeks to plow through all the paperwork and get a clearer picture of the kind of shape Nightingale Books was in financially. Several more worms had crawled out of the can.
Emilia had unearthed a pile of pro forma invoices that didn’t seem to have been paid. They were from some of their main suppliers. She wouldn’t be able to order any more books until she’d paid them.
Then a credit card bill had arrived with the morning post. She opened it and was horrified by the balance. There were no purchases for that month, of course, but neither had any minimum payments been made, because Emilia hadn’t been aware of the card’s existence. It hadn’t been in Julius’s wallet.
She searched through the piles of paperwork on the desk, and found two copies of previous bills in unopened envelopes. The withdrawals were all cash. The interest was compounding due to the lack of payments.
She phoned Andrea, who told h
er to bring the bills round straightaway.
“That must have been what he’d been using to pay the wages.” Andrea sighed as she leafed through them. “This is one of those cards with six months zero-percent finance. He must have taken it out to cover his cash flow. But of course now the interest is going to kick in big-time. I’ll phone the company and put them in the picture. And I’ll have to pass it on to your solicitor for the probate.”
“It’s nearly four thousand pounds.”
Andrea sighed. “It’s easily done. He’s not the first and he won’t be the last.”
Emilia felt disconsolate. She was just getting her head around the existing debts and feeling she could manage.
“The debts are just getting bigger and bigger.”
“We can consolidate them.” Andrea tried to sound reassuring. “Don’t worry—you’re sitting on a gold mine. You can take out a loan if you need to.”
“I suppose so. I’m just not used to such big sums of money.”
“I wish all my clients felt like that. Honestly, this is nothing in the grand scheme of things.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
Andrea took Emilia off to the bank in the high street where Nightingale Books had had its account since the day Julius arrived in Peasebrook. There, they negotiated a generous overdraft facility with the bank manager.
“Now you don’t have to worry about how to pay the wages.”
Emilia shuddered. “I’ve never been in this kind of debt. I don’t even go overdrawn usually.”
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