by Jessica Hart
‘It didn’t matter at the cottage.’
Clara bit her lip. ‘And it might not matter tomorrow, or next week, or the week after that, but sooner or later, it would. You taught me that,’ she said. ‘You have to find someone who shares your goals and your interests and fits into your life. We’ve had some romantic moments, but moments are all they are.’
She was right. It was what he had said all along, Simon knew, but it sounded all wrong coming out of her mouth.
‘Well, I enjoyed them,’ he said.
Clara’s brave smile evaporated from her face. ‘Me too,’ she whispered.
‘Goodbye, Clara.’ Simon leant across and gently kissed her mouth, and she laid her palm against his cheek and kissed him back. It was short and achingly sweet. A farewell kiss.
‘Goodbye, Simon.’ Her eyes were shimmering with tears as she dropped her hand, and his heart shook with wanting her.
Before he could jerk her back into his arms, she was out of the car, grabbing her bag from the back seat, running up the steps to the front door. He watched her put the key in the door, push it open. At the last minute she turned and lifted a hand to him. Simon lifted a hand in return.
Then she went inside and closed the door.
She was gone.
* * *
‘You can’t show this!’ Clara looked from Ted to Roland in horror. They had just shown her the preview copy of Romance: Fact or Fiction?, now titled How to Fall in Love (When You Really Don’t Want To).
‘Lovey, it’s a great programme,’ said Ted gently.
‘It’s not! It’s nothing like we planned. This is a completely different film! It’s…private.’
Clara was near to tears. She hadn’t been looking forward to watching the preview, knowing it would bring back bittersweet memories of Simon, but she had never dreamed that it would be this bad.
She knew that she had made the right decision. Going their separate ways was the sensible thing to do. Sometimes she saw Simon on the news, and he looked cool and contained and like the grown-up that he was, while she was still muddling along, not knowing anything except the fact that she missed him.
Nothing was right without him. She couldn’t dance any more because there was a leaden weight inside her that threw her off balance, and her heart was too bleak for her to be able to sing. Always before she had been able to bury her feelings beneath a light-hearted veneer, but not this time.
This time it was too hard.
Getting through every day was a chore. Clara had thrown herself into work, and put in long hours while Ted and Roland were closeted in the editing suite. Her job had been her only consolation.
Until now.
Clara turned an accusing glare on Ted. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘I didn’t think you’d like it.’ Ted had the grace to blush. ‘I thought that if you saw the finished result, you might realise what a great story it is now.’
Oh, she could see that. It was a clever piece of film-making. All the locations were lovingly shot. Ted had taken everything she and Simon had said for the camera and edited it so that the arguments came across as an interesting, engaging debate. He had made the programme that they had planned.
But he hadn’t stopped there. Their set pieces were intercut with shots of Simon and Clara when they thought they were off camera.
There they were in Paris. Simon putting his jacket around her shoulders on the Pont Neuf, rolling his eyes as she sang herself into a confident mood. Absorbed in each other in the Montmartre bistro. Dancing close together in the club. Ted took his camera wherever he went. Why hadn’t she remembered that?
There they were sitting on that granite boulder, the wind whipping Clara’s hair around her face. She held it back with one hand and looked at Simon with her heart in her eyes. And Simon, watching her as she danced on the table. How could she possibly have thought their body language wasn’t revealing? They might as well have hung out a sign that they had slept together.
There they were on Paradise Island, on the end of the dock. Clara supposed she should be grateful Ted hadn’t filmed her throwing up, but he had been there later because there they were on the beach, watching the sunset together.
Kissing.
It was dark, and not that clear, but there was no doubt about what they were doing.
Clara’s face was hot. ‘What were you doing spying on us on the beach?’ she said furiously to Ted. ‘That was just pervy!’
‘I just happened to be getting some establishing shots of the sunset,’ he said, but his eyes slid away from hers.
‘Hah!’
‘Clara, I know how it seems, but it was just so clear what the real story was,’ Ted tried to explain. ‘Simon was saying one thing and it was obvious that he really believed it, but at the same time he was feeling something else entirely. I could tell right from the start that he was falling in love with you.’
Ted didn’t bother to say that it had been just as obvious that she had been falling in love with Simon at the same time.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Clara dully.
‘You only need to watch the programme to see that he is.’
‘You don’t understand!’ Clara took a breath and fought to stay calm. ‘Yes, we had a fling, but that’s all it was. That’s not how Simon is. You know what his reputation is. If you show this, he’ll be a laughing stock! It’s wrong!’
She turned imploringly to Roland, who was leaning back in his chair, picking his nails. ‘You can’t do this!’
‘I think you’ll find I can,’ he said. ‘This is all very sweet, but Simon Valentine signed a release and there’s nothing in there about having to approve what goes out.’
‘He didn’t know you were going to put this…this travesty together!’
‘Tough,’ said Roland. ‘They’re going to lap this up at Channel 16. I’ve got to admit that I had my doubts when Ted suggested you as a stand-in for Stella in Paris,’ he admitted frankly, ‘but it’s turned out brilliantly. I said to him when he first showed me the edits, “I think you’ve got something here, mate.” Didn’t I, Ted?’
Ted nodded. The traitor. He looked uncomfortable. As well he might, thought Clara, clenching her fists in frustration. She knew Ted would hate upsetting her, but he was a passionate film maker and if he believed in this programme, she wouldn’t shift him.
‘Look, this is going to turn out fine,’ Roland said. ‘I think we’ll get more commissions on the back of this one, and you can produce them if you want. Get your own production assistant. How about that?’
Clara stared at him. She felt sick. Her dream job, in return for letting them expose Simon to the media wolves. Simon, who was so famously controlled, so self-contained, his guard down for everyone to jeer over. The press would have a field day. It had been bad enough for him when Stella had spread those silly rumours, but this would be on television for everyone to see and laugh about.
‘No,’ she said.
‘No what?’
‘No, I won’t let you do it,’ she said clearly. ‘Simon may have signed a release, but I didn’t. I won’t give you permission to show this.’
Roland’s face darkened. He turned to Ted. ‘She didn’t sign a release?’
‘It’s Clara’s job to make sure they get signed,’ said Ted nervously.
‘Oh, that’s just great!’ snarled Roland. ‘Then it’s a straight choice, Clara. Sign the release and keep your job, or take a walk.’
‘Roland—’ Ted started to protest, but Clara didn’t wait to hear or stop to think. Pushing back her chair, she snatched up her bag and jacket.
‘I’ll take the walk.’
* * *
Clara sat at the table in her parents’ comfortably shabby Oxford kitchen. Outside, it was a soft spring day, but the blue sky and the tubs of cheerful daffodils weren’t enough to stop the world looking grey. Dispiritedly, she scrolled through the ‘jobs vacant’ on her laptop. She had to find a job somehow.
Television was out. Roland had plenty of contacts in the media, and she knew he had put the word out that she was unreliable. Competition was cut-throat as it was. She’d be lucky if she ever got another job in production, Clara thought miserably.
If she didn’t get a job soon, she would have to tell Allegra couldn’t afford to pay rent any more. Staying in London had been too painful, and she had come home to Oxford for a few days to regroup. Her parents had welcomed her back with their usual vaguely baffled kindness.
‘Of course you can stay,’ her mother had said, deep in an article about ecclesiastical reform in the sixteenth century. ‘What about your job, though?’
‘I told you,’ said Clara. ‘I had to leave.’
‘Oh, dear. I thought you liked working in television too.’
Clara supposed it was something that her mother remembered what it was she’d been doing.
‘I did,’ she said.
She missed her job. She missed working with Ted. She missed Allegra and the flat and the in-depth discussions about Saturday night TV.
But, most of all, she missed Simon. Ted’s film had been a shock. She hadn’t realised their feelings were quite so obvious. A little bit of Clara had rejoiced to see Simon falling for her, of course—the bit that had urged her to pick up the phone, to call him and tell him how she felt. But a saner, more sensible part held her back.
Simon might be attracted to her, but he hadn’t changed. Neither of them had changed. He was still logical, practical, a man who needed order and control, and she was still a girl who needed to be loved completely. Simon would never be able to do that. Clara understood just how carefully he guarded his emotions. She needed more than he was able to give, and it was better to accept that now than hope and hope the way she had done with Matt.
Anyway, it wasn’t really love, whatever Ted’s film made it look like. It was an attraction, Clara decided. A physical thing. That wasn’t the same. But there was still a tight band around chest, making it hard to breathe properly. Her back was still stiff, her limbs still rigid, her heart locked down.
Ted had been in touch, miserably torn and desperate to make amends. He was worried about her. When Matt had left her for Sophie, it was Ted who had dragged her along to a Sound of Music singalong, and her spirits had been instantly boosted, but this time Clara didn’t even have the heart for that.
Her father had disappeared to answer the doorbell. He was expecting a PhD student, and had forgotten that he still had a piece of toast in his hand. Her mother was sitting at the other end of the table, drinking coffee and marking essays.
‘What are you doing today, Clara?’ she asked absently.
‘Looking for a job,’ said Clara. London had too many painful memories. Perhaps she should try and find something in Oxford? It would be humiliating to have to move back in with her parents, but what did a bit of humiliation matter now?
‘Why don’t you think about doing a degree?’
‘What in? The collected works of Rodgers and Hammerstein?’
‘There must be something you want to do.’
See Simon. Touch Simon. Be with Simon. Did they offer a degree in that?
‘I don’t think I’m university material, Mum.’ Clara sighed and slumped back in her chair. ‘I don’t seem to be very good at anything.’
Her mother lifted her head at that and inspected her daughter over the top of her glasses. ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s the case at all,’ she said but before Clara could ask her what she meant, her father wandered back in, eating his toast.
‘What have you done with your student?’
‘It wasn’t her. It’s some man for you, Clara,’ he said vaguely.
‘Me? But nobody knows I’m here.’ Ted might have guessed, but her parents knew him well and not even her father was vague enough to not recognize him. ‘Are you sure it was me he wanted?’
‘I may be a little absent-minded sometimes, but I’m not senile,’ her father said, pouring himself some more coffee. ‘Of course it was you.’
Puzzled, Clara pushed back her chair and went to the door.
And there was Simon.
Her heart leapt with joy and the world, which had been dully monochrome and all askew, abruptly righted itself and sprang back into colour.
‘Simon!’
She drank in the sight of him on the doorstep. He was looking positively casual in an open-necked shirt and jacket, but otherwise he was wonderfully Simon. She loved the austere angles of his face, the stern mouth that made her knees go weak, the quiet solidity of him.
She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but the strained look in his eyes, the tautness around his mouth, made her pause.
‘Is everything OK?’
‘Fine.’ Simon cleared his throat. ‘That is…fine. I just came by because…well, I wondered if you had a summer house here,’ he finished in a rush.
Clara’s jaw dropped. She didn’t know what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t that. ‘A summer house?’
‘Do you?’
Was this a peculiarly vivid dream? ‘There’s a shed in the back garden,’ she said cautiously.
‘The back garden. That’ll do fine.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Could we go there now?’ he asked tensely. ‘If you’re not too busy?’
Clara stared at him. ‘Simon, are you sure you’re all right? You’re behaving very strangely.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s just there’s something I need to do before I lose my nerve.’
‘In the shed?’ But she stood back and Simon stepped past her into the house.
Still half convinced that this was a dream, Clara led him down the narrow Victorian tiled hall to the back door. They passed the open door of the kitchen, where her parents were having an erudite discussion about Derrida interspersed with requests to pass the marmalade.
There was a flash of the old Simon as he raised his brows at Clara. ‘They mixed up the babies at the hospital,’ she whispered. ‘My real parents are out there somewhere slumped in front of the television and watching soaps.’
Neither of her parents was much of a gardener, and the long walled garden was rather neglected. The borders were straggly and overgrown, and dandelions were starting to sprout in the grass and between the worn stones of the patio.
‘That’s the shed,’ said Clara, pointing. It was faded and listing slightly to one side, and she couldn’t imagine what Simon wanted with it.
‘It’s all right. This will do.’ Simon was lookin
g around the patio, moving a pot out of the way and pulling out a rickety garden chair. ‘Sit down,’ he said as he steered Clara towards it.
‘Simon, what’s going on?’
‘Just a minute.’ He took a deep breath, and opened his mouth. And then closed it again.
‘What?’ Clara was getting really worried.
Simon cleared his throat savagely. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll start again.’
Another breath and then, to Clara’s astonishment, he launched into a cracked and uncertain rendition from The Sound of Music.
A dazzling hope blurred Clara’s eyes with tears. It was unmistakably Climb Every Mountain, even if he forgot the words halfway through and had to improvise.
And he was dancing! True, Simon was no Nureyev, but he was definitely shuffling from side to side and every now and then he even tried a twirl. His expression was intent, and he was frowning as he tried to remember the words and coordinate with the movements. Several times he found himself facing the wrong way, and had to turn round hastily and pick up his routine again.
Clara covered her mouth with her hand. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Simon was there, it was really him, and he was dancing for her.
And then he was holding out his hand, inviting her to dance with him, drawing her up from her chair. Smiling through her tears, she let him swing her round until he came to a halt with a flourish.
‘…your dree-eam,’ he finished tunelessly and looked into Clara’s eyes at last with a mixture of relief, trepidation and excruciating embarrassment.
‘Simon,’ she said, starry-eyed. ‘You were singing. You were dancing.’
‘I’m not very good, I know.’
‘That was the best version of Climb Every Mountain I’ve ever heard.’ Her voice cracked a little as she put her arms around his neck. ‘The best,’ she whispered in his ear as he pulled her close but, before he could kiss her there was a burst of applause from the kitchen window.