Valentine

by Rebecca Farnworth

  'Take a chill pill Saul, it's just a picture,' Valentine replied. Saul was the last person she wanted to ask a favour of, but needs must. 'I could always ask someone else if you think it's such a big deal.'

  'Don't draw attention to yourself,' Saul shot back. 'Just give me the fucking phone.' She handed him her mobile and he furtively took the shot, barely giving Valentine time to pose, then tossed it back at her. She checked the image and saw to her dismay that he'd only got her head and shoulders. He was such a git.

  'Saul, you haven't got the whole dress,' she started saying, but Saul's attention had been claimed by another guest and she was left standing there holding her phone and feeling self-conscious, even though she knew for a fact that Piers had asked him to look after her. She scanned the crowd looking for Piers, then realised that she had no reason to seek him out. What was she supposed to do now? She'd never been to a film premiere before and had no idea of the etiquette. She didn't know anyone. Should she go and introduce herself to some people or should she just stand here like a lemon? Albeit a lemon in a very expensive dress.

  'Well, well, Valentine Fleming.'

  Oh my God, it couldn't be, could it? She spun round at the sound of the familiar voice – adrenalin pumping through her along with that tiny flicker of hope because there standing in front of her was Jack. He looked devastatingly sexy in black tie, his dark-brown hair cut shorter than the last time she'd seen him. Valentine felt suitably devastated. Even in the tightly fitted Spanx Jack had an impact and Valentine was reminded of Lottie's saying.

  'Here with Daddy, I see,' he continued, dryly.

  'He doesn't want anyone to know yet, so promise you won't say anything.' She couldn't bring herself to mention the confidentiality contract.

  Jack shrugged. 'What's the big deal, aren't you good enough for him? Though I see he's got you dressing the part.' He whistled as he took in the Valentino dress. 'Not sure about the hair, though. It's a bit First Lady, isn't it?'

  'Oh.' Instinctively Valentine put a hand up to her hair. Jack had always liked her to wear it down, as wild as possible, but Ivana had told her that Olivia had a phobia about finding stray hairs anywhere near her and had asked that Valentine always wear her hair tied back in her company.

  'And have you got fake tan on?'

  'I might have.'

  'Be careful Valentine, it's a thin line to becoming one of the orange people.'

  Valentine looked at her arms in alarm. No way was she orange; she had a sunkissed glow, damn him. To hide her discomfort she changed the subject. 'So why are you here?'

  'I'm here with Tamara.'

  Wham, that was a blow. The flicker of hope went out again. Valentine had hoped by now the novelty of Tamara would have worn off.

  'And Piers invited me.' Jack curled his lip dismissively. 'He seems to want to offer me a role in his next movie. Big wow.'

  Valentine was stung by Jack's disdain, even though she knew he had always preferred art house over blockbusters. 'You don't have to audition,' she answered. 'There are plenty of other actors out there who would jump at the chance of working for my—' she lowered her voice to a whisper – 'dad. His films are very successful. Don't be such a snob because they're mainstream. Not everyone can be Alejandro González Iñárritu!' She stumbled over the pronunciation of one of Jack's favourite directors.

  'That's not the reason. Piers's films are so crushingly predictable, where the actors get to show the emotional range of fish.' He paused. 'So, are you here with Finn?'

  She shook her head. 'I did see him for a while, but then we broke up. For good.'

  Jack gave a bitter laugh. 'So he went off with his other girlfriend, did he? I could have predicted that one.'

  'Actually I broke up with him,' Valentine replied, not at all liking Jack's tone of voice.

  'Well that's probably the best thing you've ever done. Pity it all came too late in the day.'

  She was shocked and hurt by the venom in his voice. He sounded as if he hated her. She was about to reply when he said, 'There's Tamara. I'd better go. Enjoy the film, Valentine.'

  Stung as she was by Jack's words and by his tone, she knew she couldn't be that surprised. She had hoped that by now he might have been feeling more forgiving, but clearly this was not the case. Nonetheless she spent the time before the film started scanning the vast auditorium for him, still longing to see him.

  'Stop looking around,' Saul hissed. 'It's so uncool to be star-spotting here.'

  She ignored him. She couldn't see Jack anywhere, but Piers was sitting several rows in front. 'Why aren't we on the same row as Piers?' she asked.

  Saul rolled his eyes at her naivety, and said bitterly, 'I'm only the writer, remember. I'm surprised they asked me along at all.' Valentine didn't add you're one of the writers, because it had taken ten of them to put together the screenplay.

  A sudden hush fell in the auditorium as the lights dimmed and the midnight-blue velvet curtains rippled back revealing the huge screen. Usually Valentine loved going to the cinema and losing herself in the drama, but right now she knew she had to concentrate one hundred per cent on the film, so she could come up with something penetrating and intelligent to tell Piers afterwards. It was an action movie – Piers's speciality – set way in the future, when the earth had been decimated by global warming, and invaded by aliens, who had enslaved the surviving humans. Naturally only one man could save mankind and defeat the alien hordes. She so wanted to see the good in it, but it was devoid of humour and nuance, Die Hard minus the comedy and great one-liners. Halfway through, Valentine felt her concentration waning. She was in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Jack – the actors only got to show a fraction of what they could do. But they were showing more range than fish, she decided; it was more like the range cats would show. To entertain herself she recast the film with cats. The hero would be half pedigree, making him sleek and arrogant, and half moggy, making him streetwise and fearless. The heroine would be Siamese, pretty and pampered with bewitching blue eyes and the villains would be white Persians, all with one green eye, one blue, a shocking cat stereotype she knew, but what the heck. She was in formulaic hell.

  'Why are you smiling?' Saul hissed in her ear. 'This is supposed to be the really emotional part.'

  Oops, Valentine had been trying to imagine if a cat would be able to work the controls of an Uzi automatic while before her the hero lay dying, shot so many times that surely he had no chance of surviving. The heroine was cradling his head in her hands, tears raining (she was watching clichés, she sure as hell could use them) down on his face as she told him she was pregnant. This was unusual in Piers's films – the hero never died, but credit to him for breaking the pattern; she'd have to remember to mention that. Then again not, as the hero's unfeasibly blue eyes opened and he croaked, 'I'm going to be there for my son.' Not dead at all. In fact the door was wide open for a sequel.

  Cheers and wild applause rose up from the auditorium as the credits rolled. Valentine turned to Saul. 'That was brilliant,' she tried to say with as much sincerity as she could muster, conscious of how fake she sounded.

  'Do you think so?' Saul asked anxiously, temporarily not his usual confident, poisonous-toad self.

  Valentine knew only too well from her own acting career that after any performance you always said the person was marvellous, even if they weren't, and left the savaging to the critics. She figured the same rule applied to the film world. 'Absolutely,' she continued. 'That's going to be such a huge hit.'

  'What?' he looked horrified. 'Did you say pile of shit?'

  Valentine resisted the urge to giggle. 'Of course not, I said huge hit!'

  The after-film party was being held in the ballroom of one of the swish hotels lining Hyde Park. It had been dressed to look like a desert in homage to the film. Sand, about a metre deep, had been scattered all over the floor, which was frankly annoying as it made walking in heels difficult and waiters had to keep rescuing guests whose heels had got stuck. There were huge
artificial palm trees with girls in skimpy silver bikinis performing trapeze acts from them while silver-suited waiters – no doubt intended to mimic the aliens' silver skin – handed out champagne. Valentine quickly noticed that she was the only guest who ever seemed to thank them. She'd done her share of waitressing and had vowed never to treat waiters badly. She wanted to have a wander around and see if there just might be someone she recognised, but Saul gave her strict instructions to stay with him. 'I don't need babysitting,' she told him petulantly.

  'Piers wants us to stay together,' was Saul's answer. So she was forced to stand at Saul's side, smiling supportively while people congratulated him on the film. Inevitably, after the guest had heaped enough praise on Saul, they would ask her the question dreaded by struggling actresses the world over: 'So what are you in at the moment?'

  'I'm between projects,' she replied, smiling fixedly, and would see the instant waning of interest in the other person's eyes.

  Sometimes they would go on to ask an additional question. 'So what movies have you been in?'

  'Oh I've only been in one film; I'm not sure if you would have seen it. It was only shown at film festivals,' Valentine would reply. And that would be the final nail in the coffin of the conversation, and they would make their excuses and go off and talk to someone way more interesting and higher up the food chain.

  'These people make me feel so worthless,' Valentine said bitterly to Saul after she'd endured another such conversation.

  'Well you don't exactly sell yourself, do you?' Saul replied nastily and for a second Valentine almost felt like telling him what she had really thought of the film. But then Piers and Olivia joined them.

  'So what did you think?' Piers asked.

  Valentine took a deep breath and launched into her carefully prepared speech. 'I thought it was amazing! Such a powerful film with such strong themes about life and death and survival and identity. It was an epic really, wasn't it?' She knew she was gushing, but she really wanted to impress Piers.

  'Good, good,' he replied, nodding in agreement. 'I'm glad you got all that. Did you pick up where I was influenced by Bergman? Anyway, we can talk about this tomorrow in more detail; I've got a window after my training session with Kelly. Shall we discuss it over breakfast? And I really want to talk about your career Valentine. I definitely want you to have a part in my next film.'

  Valentine was simultaneously thrilled at the prospect and horrified at the thought of having to come up with something else to say about the film. It really had been the most dreadful load of predictable bollocks. And what the hell had been the Bergman influence? She took a super-sized sip of her champagne. Hopefully there would be some reviews already up on the net and she would be able to glean something from them. She looked round the room, half-hoping, half-dreading that Jack would be there. Saul and Piers were chatting to a journalist, Olivia was deep in conversation with the very good-looking hero of the film, and she was left feeling like a lemon again.

  Suddenly she caught sight of Jack and Tamara walking towards them. She noticed that Tamara didn't look quite so polished as usual – she had bags under her eyes, her usually glowing skin looked sallow and she seemed to have lost even more weight. What was that about? Valentine wondered. As Tamara went into raptures over the film to Piers (she hadn't lost her ability to be really annoying), Jack stood at her side looking moody. He caught Valentine's eye and moved next to her. 'Shall I tell you what the reviews will say tomorrow?' he whispered in her ear. 'They'll all say that it was a turkey. No, that's too generous; it was a Turkey Twizzler.'

  She turned to him. 'Shut up! It was not! It had all these really strong themes in it, and had so much to say about the planet. I think it will be a classic. Didn't you pick up on the Bergman influence?'

  'You know that's bollocks,' Jack replied, smiling at her feeble attempts. It was the first time he'd smiled at her since the break-up.

  'Come on, let's go outside and talk. I can't hear myself think with so much sycophantic crap flying around.'

  Maybe this was the moment Jack was going to tell her that he'd made a huge mistake and that he wanted her back. Her heart did the crazy racing thing as she followed him out of the room, the small flicker of hope reignited. Seeming to know exactly where he was going, Jack led her down the long corridor and into an empty conference room.

  'So Fleming, have you missed me then?' Jack asked once they were inside. His question definitely sounded promising, even flirtatious and he'd called her Fleming, as he always used to when they were flirting.

  'You can't ask me that when you've just been so horrible to me!' she protested. She leaned against the wall and tried to act cool, doing her best Greta Garbo 'I want to be alone' impression, while inside her thoughts were tumbling round, with the answer: God yes, I've missed you, I miss you so much that sometimes I can't bear it. Do you know I still sleep with your T-shirt and I still can't drink coffee because it reminds me of you and how you always had to drink coffee in the morning. And I'll never be able to watch The English Patient again.

  'I'm sorry I was rude earlier. I guess it was just the shock of seeing you again. But you haven't answered my question. Have you missed me, Fleming?'

  'Have you missed me?' she countered.

  He moved in closer. 'What do you think?' He was so close his lips were almost brushing against hers. She got a hit of Eau Savage, always her favourite, and he gently ran his hands along her bare arms, sending fireworks of anticipation shooting down her spine all the way into her Spanx. She instinctively moved closer to him so their bodies were touching, willing him to kiss her. As if he had read her mind his lips were on hers and they were kissing, opening the floodgates of memory and desire in her. She wanted him so badly. He broke away from kissing her lips to kiss her neck and shoulders, slipping down the thin straps of her dress. Desire made her reckless; she didn't care that anyone could walk in on them. She returned his caresses, undid his shirt buttons, ran her hands over his chest, his flat, hard abs and lower still. God, this was going to be like that really intense scene in The English Patient when Katharine and Almásy have slipped away from a party to make love. So long as she didn't end up trapped in a dark cave on her own to die, with only a notebook and tinned meat for company – Valentine knew she wouldn't have come up with such poetic musings as Katharine had in her final hours – more like Help! I don't want to die! And she hated corned beef. Though true enough, she wasn't quite sure how they would negotiate the passion-killing control pants. Nothing mattered except how good kissing Jack felt and feeling his body against hers. But suddenly, just as Valentine was wondering if she could race to the bathroom and take off the Spanx before resuming activities – whatever Hugh Grant's character in Bridget Jones' Diary had said about them, they really were not a turn on – Jack abruptly pulled away.

  'What's the matter?' Valentine asked, disconcerted by the change.

  'I just remembered I had to be somewhere else.' His voice was clipped and cold.

  'What d'you mean?' Valentine, suddenly aware of how much of her body was on display, quickly pulled up her straps.

  He gave a small smile that didn't reach his eyes and said, 'That was just a taste of what you've been missing all this time.'

  She looked at him in dismay. He hadn't wanted her at all; this had just been about humiliating her and getting some kind of revenge. It was so needlessly cruel, so unlike Jack.

  He started walking out the door; then he turned back and said, 'I miss the old Valentine. Do you want to know why I stopped just then? I realised I didn't even know you anymore. You obviously love this kind of world, and seem to fit right in, but it's not for me. And you can tell Daddy dearest that I'm not interested in working for him, not now, not ever.'

  Valentine watched him go, willing herself not to cry. He's not worth it, she tried to tell herself, but her words sounded so hollow, because yes he was worth it – Jack Hart was definitely worth it. She had been the one to blow it; she blinked back the hot tears. All she wante
d to do now was go home, but how would she explain that to Piers? Oh sorry, I just ran into my ex, nearly had sex with him but then he rejected me. She spent a few minutes redoing her make-up, wincing at the sight of her flushed cheeks and swollen lips. Then she walked slowly back into the ballroom, trying to locate Piers. She had to accept once and for all that Jack belonged to the past. So why then as she looked around her, did she long for him? And not just him – suddenly, as she looked around at the famous faces, the lavish decor, the extravagant food and drink, she was overcome with longing for all of her old life. She wished she was back in her old flat giggling over a bottle of red wine with Lauren, Lily and Frank rather than standing here and sipping vintage champagne in her designer evening dress. She didn't belong here and she didn't want to either, even if there was a film role for her.

  16

  A Break

  'Darling! I think you may be finally up for the part that could be the making of you!' It was Sylvia, her agent, in full flow.

  'What is it?' Valentine realised that she was required to speak, even though all she wanted to do was crawl back to bed. It was the morning after the premiere. In the aftermath of her encounter with Jack Valentine had drunk a lot of vintage champagne. In fact she'd probably consumed an entire two days' worth of calories, Olivia had informed her when Piers was out of earshot. Valentine had simply drunk another glass as her answer; it seemed like the only way to deal with what Jack had said to her.

  'It's the female lead in a major new TV drama about a private detective agency in London. A kind of British Moonlighting if you like. Yes, yes I know it was way before your time, but google it and you'll see what I mean. Lots of simmering sexual tension between you and your partner. Gorgeous. You're the Cybill Shepherd type character who runs the agency. I know you will be absolutely perfect. It's a bit like Spooks; you know, all sexy slick production values, plenty of gadgets and a scrumptious male actor – think Rupert Penry-Jones meets James McAvoy – but obviously not them as they're looking for someone new.