by Susan Lewis
‘Hey you two,’ she shouted, turning to the door and waiting for it to open.
Still no-one came, so in the end she opened the door herself, and discovered to her amazement that the sitting room was empty.
She wasn’t angry, she was simply startled and disappointed, and concerned about Bob, because he might be off getting drunk somewhere again.
She found him, half an hour later, in a dark corner of the pub, staring blindly at a full glass of gin. Loud music was blaring from a jukebox in the corner, and bright, flashing lights strobed around the near-empty room.
Sitting down next to him, she buried her hands deeply in the pockets of her oversized coat. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer, merely continued to stare at the glass.
Tessa picked it up and took a sip. His eyes remained rooted to the same spot.
Putting the glass down again, she reached up to smooth back his hair. ‘Is Allyson going to let us have the flat?’ she asked softly.
He took a breath, but no words came out.
‘It’s all right,’ she said soothingly. ‘I’m not sure we’ve really got any right to it …’
‘We’ve got every right to it,’ he slurred. ‘So she either lets us have it, or she has to sell.’
‘And the country house?’
He didn’t answer.
She cupped her hands around his face and turned him to look at her. ‘Was it really terribly hard?’ she said gently, her black eyes showing her concern.
Still he didn’t answer.
She kissed him softly on the mouth. ‘It’s all right, I understand how you must be feeling,’ she said. ‘But please, don’t be angry with me. We need a good home for our baby, that’s all that really matters.’
His eyes weren’t focusing on her. They were somewhere else, in a place he didn’t know and didn’t want to leave. Then dimly he became aware of her pulling faces in an effort to make him laugh, so to satisfy her he attempted a smile.
‘What happened to Julian?’ she asked, taking another sip of his drink. ‘Did you frighten him off?’
His eyes drew focus for a moment, and seemed to drag his mind with them. He thought of Allyson and how he’d wrecked everything just to be with this girl. He didn’t seem able to sort out why now, yet somewhere deep inside the bewildering fog in his brain he knew that despite the whole rotten mess, the regrets, the pain, the fear and the shame, he still couldn’t say that he wanted to give her up. Maybe what he wanted was to have them both. His wife and the secure, stable, and fulfilling life they’d always had, and Tessa, this girl whom he never seemed able to get enough of.
‘Julian?’ she prompted with a smile.
Oh yes, Julian. His vision was blurring again, but he could still see her, smiling at him with those beautiful lips that he got so lost in. Had Julian ever got lost in them? ‘Would that really turn you on?’ he said. ‘To be with two men?’
She laughed, and drew his hands into hers. ‘You know it would,’ she said. ‘We talk about it all the time when we share our fantasies.’
‘Have you done it before?’ he asked.
Her smile widened, telling him she had.
‘Who with?’
She looked over at his drink, then fishing out the lemon she began sucking out the juice.
He waited until she put it down again. ‘Who with?’ he repeated, feeling that for some reason it was important to know.
She was still staring at the lemon, then with a smile she picked up his hand again and drew it inside her coat, onto her bare flesh. ‘It doesn’t matter. They’re dead now,’ she said.
Chapter 8
THE UK HEAD office of Leisure and Media Inc was on the south side of Russell Square in the centre of London. It was from here that Mark Reiner ran the successful media and catering empire he and his older brother, Nick, had built up over the past twenty years. Though Nick was headquartered in New York, they did their best to meet up at least once a month, which more often than not turned out to be in New York. This month, however, Nick and his wife, Claudia, had flown to London. Claudia wanted to shop and catch up with old friends. Mark’s wife, Heather, had not come with them. She’d checked into the Betty Ford Clinic six weeks ago and didn’t expect to be out in time to celebrate their divorce. Not that she’d have celebrated with Mark, more likely she’d fly straight to the exclusive multimillion-dollar mansion that she and her new budding movie-star lover had recently acquired. Mark was fully aware that it was the settlement he had made on her that had paid for the Hollywood hideaway, but that didn’t rankle anywhere near as much as the loss of the Devonshire home he had spent millions restoring.
Though his marriage had been a resounding failure, the business triumphs of the past twelve years had been spectacular. He and Nick had come a long way from the lowly west country roots that had been transplanted to Idaho, USA, when Nick was twelve and Mark was eleven. After college they’d headed straight for New York. Within a year they’d owned one small restaurant on the Upper West Side, not as fashionable then as it was now. Nick had persuaded a local radio station to promote them heavily, and, to make a long story short, they’d ended up buying into the radio station, opening up more restaurants around the city, gradually going into hotels and then into television. Claudia, Mark’s sister-in-law, now ran the TV cable company the two brothers owned in the States, while Nick concentrated on their catering interests, which included a small, extremely upmarket chain of hotels sited in London, New York, Paris, Gstaad, Hong Kong, Sydney – and Ravello, Italy, when the conversion was complete. For his part, Mark had been working for some time now on buying up the British TV station he’d recently acquired. It had provided him with a good reason to base himself in London, and now the takeover was assured he would remain headquartered here, making the restructuring of the station his priority.
And boy, was he making himself unpopular. Already he’d announced plans to axe two lightweight current affairs shows, a struggling drama serial, two spectacularly bad situation comedies, and a local news programme that was so dull a half-hour of fly-fishing would have pulled in more viewers. Along with the programmes would go many of the producers, directors, writers, researchers and presenters whose combined years of service totalled somewhere around a large city’s population. At some point he would hire a programme controller to replace Stella Cornbright, someone not only to oversee all the changes he had made, but with the vision to improve on them. He had several candidates in mind, from both sides of the Atlantic, but had yet to begin even preliminary talks.
Oddly, the programme that was giving him the greatest pause for thought was Soirée. His first inclination had been to cancel it altogether, but after watching for several nights he’d decided it had a certain style and the ratings, whilst certainly down on the early years, were still respectable. The lunch he’d had with Shelley Bronson a couple of days ago had also gone some way to persuading him that it was worth keeping the show going, at least until the end of its season run in May. If she’d given any sign of resisting his changes he might be taking a different view right now, but as it stood, provided something was done to sharpen up the pace and bring in younger viewers, he was OK with it staying. His guess was that he’d suggested changes Shelley had long wanted, but until now she’d allowed her friendship with Allyson to take precedence over her judgement. So he was going to be the bad guy, which was fine by him, he was in this to make money, not friends.
‘Get Shelley Bronson on the line,’ he said through the intercom to Corinne, his assistant. ‘Then call Max Weatherby and tell him I’ll join the video conference with New York at eleven thirty.’
While he waited he turned to his computer to pull up the company’s investment portfolio. As he perused it, he rocked gently back and forth in his giant leather chair. Outside trees were being buffeted by fierce winds, which ripped away their leaves and carried them into the traffic that was constantly circling the square. Mark’s office was on the first floor of an old Regency buil
ding that still retained all the charm and character of its original high ceilings and creaking wooden floors, which had now been covered with luxurious black carpet. Everything in his chief executive’s suite was of the highest quality and outstanding workmanship, from the hand-made Italian desk and bookcases to the sumptuous leather sofas and armchairs. There were two original Pollocks hanging either side of the Swedish birchwood TV cabinet, and more garishly colourful and intriguing abstracts on the other walls, all done by the young American artists that he and Nick were sponsoring. The offices of the finance director and company lawyer were housed in the same building, with more original art hanging on their walls, and equally as tasteful furniture in the more modern, Italian style to finish off the exceptionally elegant and de luxe look of the young and extremely rich media company.
He was still scrolling through the latest figures when his assistant buzzed through to announce that Shelley was on the line. Picking up the phone he clicked his assistant off and connected himself to the call. ‘Good morning,’ he said.
‘Hello.’
He smiled and sat back in his chair. Her voice was as sultry as he remembered, and he had no difficulty in picturing the fullness of her lips as she spoke. ‘I enjoyed our lunch the other day,’ he told her. ‘Sorry I had to rush off.’
She said nothing.
Amused by the silence, he said, ‘I watched the show the night before last.’
‘And you want to talk about Tessa.’
Of course she would know that, it was almost certainly why she had slipped the girl into the programme, to get his attention, and show him that she already had young talent on tap. ‘How much experience does she have?’ he asked.
‘Virtually none. But that needn’t be a problem.’
‘I’ll trust you on that. Would the start of the New Year be too soon to turn things around?’
‘No,’ she answered.
He looked down at the notes he’d made on their meeting. ‘Send me a breakdown on what you’d do with a fifty per cent increase in budget,’ he said.
‘You’ll have it by the end of the day.’
‘Then we’ll discuss it over dinner,’ he said. ‘Bibendum. Eight thirty,’ and without waiting for an answer he rang off.
Allyson had spent the past two days, and nights, trying to come up with something sensational with which to impress Mark Reiner. It was either that, she’d decided the night Bob had told her Tessa was pregnant, or five bottles of paracetamol and the lower oven of the smart Bosch unit. And if all her efforts to hang onto her job failed, then the paracetamol and gassed-up oven always remained an option. Indeed, there had been plenty of times over the past forty-eight hours when the second option had come very close to promotion, and in truth she was so exhausted now, as she sat at her desk and stared blurry-eyed at her computer, that desperation was hampering her ability to think straight, and tiredness was threatening to make her emotional.
For a moment she seemed not to know what the time was, though she thought it was still morning, and the huge pile of mail beside her probably confirmed it. It might not be a bad idea for her to read some of that mail, she was thinking, for she received so many letters of support and encouragement these days, telling her what an inspiration she was to others, and how deeply moved her viewers were that she continued her work with those in need, despite her own misfortune, that the kindness of those letters frequently sent strength and hope streaming back into her heart. How considerate some people were, that they bothered to take the time to write those letters. And how odd that it should be hundreds of faceless strangers who were now providing the anchor in her life, preventing her from drifting even further into depression, or drowning in the ceaseless waves of despair.
This morning, though, she didn’t feel she could read them. She was too close to the edge already, and the kindness contained in the neatly typed or boldly scrawled words rarely failed to move her to tears. And she didn’t want to cry, not here in the office, where people would see her. Tears were for the privacy of her bedroom, just like dread of the future was for the privacy of her heart.
So she turned away from the letters, and was about to print out the proposals she’d drawn up to show Mark Reiner, when she found herself looking across the office to where Tessa was sitting. A wild and raging hatred surged into her heart. Then came the panicked terror of the months ahead, when she’d have to watch that girl growing big with Bob’s child, and feel herself growing smaller and smaller in the might of the pain. So maybe it would be better if she left the programme altogether, freed herself from having to see the girl every day and went somewhere new, another company, another city, maybe even another country.
Minutes later she was still staring at Tessa. With her shaggy dark hair, rosebud lips and glittering ebony eyes she looked so young and radiant. So happy and in love with the world. Everyone had complimented her on her piece the other night, even Allyson. She’d spoken to her warmly, even affectionately, for she hadn’t wanted anyone even to guess what was going on inside her.
Shelley knew, though, which was probably why Shelley had refrained from adding to the praise. But the restraint had done little to ease the tension between them, they’d barely spoken since the night Allyson had asked Shelley to leave.
Finally Allyson turned back to her computer, and after printing out her plan for survival she tried to concentrate on that night’s show. The names of the guests were in front of her, but no matter how long she looked at them they weren’t sinking in. All she could think about now was her age, and that if she was too old there would be no survival. But maybe there was a chance she could prove Mark Reiner wrong, show him what a loyal following she had, how the ratings dipped when she wasn’t there to host.
She went through the rest of the morning in a daze, somehow managing to respond to anyone who spoke to her, and even took part in a discussion on an item in that day’s news. Not for a moment did she reveal the fear that she was going to be cast aside, that this hi-tech warehouse that was virtually a second home was no longer going to be a place to which she would come every day. She kept reminding herself that nothing had yet been decided, and even if it ended up going against her Shelley had said the Night Cap slot could still be hers. But wasn’t that going to be even more humiliating than being thrown off altogether? And if she stayed she’d have no choice but to watch Tessa getting fatter with child and more famous for her little film slots and happier going home to Bob every night … Oh, no, no, no! Please God, no! This couldn’t be happening. Somehow she had to find the energy to fight back and make something work for herself.
‘Can I come in?’ Shelley said, tapping on the door of the dressing room just after lunch.
‘Of course,’ Allyson said, feigning a lightness she hadn’t felt for so long she was amazed she could still mimic it.
‘God, it’s been crazy today,’ Shelley sighed, closing the door. ‘My phone’s been ringing off the hook.’
Knowing it was because of the official announcement of Mark Reiner’s takeover, Allyson made no comment.
Shelley looked at her watch. ‘I know you’re due in make-up any time,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got some news, so maybe you could meet me back here after the recording?’
Allyson didn’t show how frightened she was, or angry that Shelley was able to carry on as though nothing had changed. Shelley hadn’t even mentioned the baby. But that was OK, Allyson didn’t want to discuss it, not even with Shelley. And besides, she was due in front of the camera soon, and now she was fighting for her life she couldn’t afford to let her terrible fears and misgivings show.
It wasn’t clear how she got through the programme, or how she performed. She simply responded to the countdown, spoke to the camera and interviewed her guests. They recorded as-live so the filmed insert was played in. Today’s was a story on an absurd neighbourhood feud somewhere in Oxford. Richard was the reporter. He was twenty-seven, young enough for his job to be safe. At the end she watched the credits roll. Tessa had
researched Richard’s story. Obviously her job would be safe too.
‘Do you know what?’ Allyson said when she found Shelley waiting in her dressing room afterwards. ‘I think I’ll have a drink. I mean a proper one. What about you?’
Shelley looked surprised, then decided it might be a good idea. ‘Vodka and tonic. Light on the vodka,’ she said.
Wearing a floor-length Ungaro creation with a slit up the front to mid-thigh and a drop back that descended to her waist, Allyson crossed to the drinks tray. She’d spent some time after the show talking to the guests, and seemed slightly clearer now, and calmer than she’d been an hour ago. As she poured, Shelley was chattering on about how well the recording had gone, so maybe she could take some heart from that and remind herself that no definitive action had been decided on, so there was really nothing to worry about yet.
How was it possible to be so wrong?
As Shelley told her the news, about trying Tessa out for the Cocktails, Allyson could feel the blood draining from her face. The pounding of her heart crescendoed until it was so loud it seemed to drown out Shelley’s words. But she heard them, every last one of them.
Her drink remained in its glass. Her hands wouldn’t move, her voice was gone. Her entire world was moving to a place far beyond her reach. First her husband, then her home, now her programme. Was there anything left for Tessa Dukes to take?
Her eyes were dry as she turned them to Shelley. ‘And you agree with him?’ she said. ‘You think Tessa should take the first half of the show, leaving me the Night Cap?’
‘I didn’t put it to the test,’ Shelley confessed, ‘but it’s my belief, if I don’t agree, he’ll axe the show altogether.’
‘He dislikes me that much?’
‘It’s not personal.’
Leaving her drink Allyson walked over to the clothes rail and started to change.