by Kirsty Ferry
Becky told him categorically where he could go and Seb laughed at her.
‘It wasn’t hard. I saw your coat in his studio.’ He nodded his head towards Jon. ‘I just had to wait outside and follow you. God, it was cold in that alleyway.’ He spoke slowly and, Jon noticed with a rising annoyance, he had stepped right inside Becky’s personal space.
‘There’s a name for people like you,’ said Jon in a low voice. He saw by the twitch of Seb’s eyebrow that he had heard him. ‘I can probably call the police right now and have you arrested.’
‘Seb, I told you to leave me alone!’ said Becky rather too loudly. ‘Can’t you take a hint?’
‘Is this your new boyfriend, Becky?’ continued Seb, still at the same low, measured pace. ‘I know you were probably on the rebound when you picked him up, but honestly, someone like him who’s got a poky little studio and relies on mad, vain tourists? It’s not sustainable. Come on. I’ll take you back home and we can start again. You know we worked well together.’
‘No, we did not,’ said Becky. This time her voice was staccato, pressing her point home. ‘Go away and stop bothering me.’
‘You heard her,’ said Jon. Even to his own ears it sounded rather pathetic.
The corner of Seb’s mouth curled up into a smile, but he never took his eyes off Becky. Instead, he held his hand out, apparently expecting her to take it and walk meekly out of the hotel.
Becky shook her head again. ‘No. I said no, Seb.’
‘Come on, mate. Enough’s enough,’ said Jon. He could feel that odd sensation creeping into his fingers again. It was Adam. Whatever Seb was doing to Becky, Adam didn’t like at all. Jon felt his hand ball into a fist and had an image of himself punching Seb in the middle of the bar. As a rule, he was not a violent man and would more often than not try to joke his way out of a situation. He tried to calm the feelings that were rising up from the floor and engulfing him; he felt powerless against a massive rage and an unreasonable hatred of Seb.
A few people were filtering into the bar area now and Jon was aware of a group of pensioners as they tottered in and sat nearby. The old dears were oblivious to the tension and more intent on chattering about how snug the fire was. There was no way Jon was going to pursue this scene with Seb in polite company. He fought back Adam’s desire to punch the man and with a great effort turned away from him.
‘Seb, if you want to continue this conversation, I suggest we go outside,’ said Becky.
‘Your call,’ said Seb, shrugging his shoulders. ‘If you think I can talk to you better in private.’
Jon saw Becky narrow her eyes, and then she nodded curtly. ‘I don’t want to talk to you in here,’ she said. ‘Outside is better for me.’
Jon sensed the atmosphere thickening around them; he understood that there were too many echoes of the past and the likes of Adam and Ella weren’t going to give up any more easily than Seb was – especially not on their territory.
Becky gestured for Seb to leave the room in front of her. As the man turned and started to leave, she flicked a look up at Jon. For the first time, he saw a glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes. He managed to fumble out the letters O K to her. He frowned, trying to make her see it as a question and was rewarded with half a smile and a nod of her head. He nodded back, and watched her follow Seb out of the room.
Jon waited a few moments; then he couldn’t help himself – he followed them out.
SEB
‘Bex, where the hell are you taking me?’ asked Seb. She was weaving through the dark pathways and he could barely see where they were going. She ignored him and continued down through some trees as he stumbled after her. ‘Bex!’ he shouted, feeling the old anger bubble up inside of him. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re playing at—’
‘This is the summer house,’ she said, turning around. ‘We’re going to stop right here, Seb.’ She moved to face him and leaned against the door frame of the pretty, restored Victorian building. She folded her arms and her eyes drilled into him. ‘Now are you going to tell me what you’re doing here? I thought I’d been very clear when we spoke earlier.’
There were some glass storm lanterns inside the summer house and they threw her face into shadow. His face, he realised, was illuminated by the lights and he blinked at the brightness. He felt like he was under some sort of inquisition and made to move further towards the shadows.
Becky, however, remained firmly in the door frame – short of physically pushing her out of the way, he couldn’t actually get into the summer house and, despite everything, he wasn’t going to lay his hands on her. So he tried another tactic, he went for her emotionally, rather than physically.
‘Becky, are you doing all this for the correct reasons?’ he asked.
‘Doing what?’ Her voice was sharp and Seb felt a frisson of annoyance.
He tried to keep his voice calm. ‘Being like this? Being in Whitby, by yourself? What are you trying to prove?’
‘I’ve got nothing to prove,’ replied Becky. She shifted position, crossing her arms the other way and following that by crossing her legs. Ah – she was being defensive then. Seb hadn’t worked in this industry for so long without understanding basic body language. Yet she stared at him and met his eyes steadily. ‘What makes you think I have?’
‘Because you’re bloody-minded and want to get back at me?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Look, Abbie was—’
‘It wasn’t all Abbie,’ retorted Becky. ‘That was just what made me decide.’
‘Abbie was because you were freezing me out, working through your “issues”.’ He made quotation marks in the air with his fingers to emphasise his point.
Becky rolled her eyes. ‘Load. Of. Rubbish,’ she said. ‘Abbie was because you couldn’t keep it in your pants.’
Seb chose to ignore that comment. Abbie had been a very attractive young lady, but that was beside the point. No – best to deflect this by turning it back on his ex-girlfriend, who stood there defying him like he didn’t know what.
‘Becky. What are you going to do in five years’ time? Ten years’ time? Fifteen?’
‘Same as I’m doing now, unless I get a better deal,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s going to change.’
He laughed and shook his head. ‘I don’t know if you’re an idiot or just stubborn.’
‘Okay, that’s really going to win me back,’ said Becky. ‘This conversation is over. I’m not listening to you any more.’ She pushed herself away from the door frame and turned to head back to the gardens.
‘Not listening?’ said Seb loudly and sharply. ‘Well now, there’s a surprise.’
Becky swung around and glared at him. ‘Words fail me. You arrogant, talentless, useless piece of—’
‘Talentless?’ Seb almost shouted. ‘You’re calling me talentless? Look here, Becky Jones, I’m the one that got us all those Gossip World assignments. You can’t claim any rights to those.’
‘I can’t,’ said Becky, her eyes like fire as she closed the gap between them, ‘but I’m the one who wrote the damn articles because you were too busy shagging the interviewees. Or their management. Or their bloody dog-walkers.’
‘That was a one-off!’ yelled Seb.
‘One-off be damned!’ Becky yelled back at him. Their faces were inches apart and for one moment Seb remembered that spark they had once shared. And the sex. The lots and lots of sex.
He couldn’t help it; he reached out and pulled her face towards him. God, she was still gorgeous, despite everything.
‘What the—?’ Becky clamped her hands over his and pulled them away from her face, almost flinging them back at him. ‘Do not touch me. You never touch me again, are we clear on that? You don’t want the whole package, so you can just get out of my life.’
Seb swore and turned away, punching t
he door frame so the whole thing shook. ‘Bex. Listen,’ he said, turning back and planting himself right in front of her. ‘I’ve tried to be reasonable. I’ve offered to take you back. I am the best you can hope for now, especially if you want to stay in this business. You don’t need a fruit-loop like that photographer because what can he ever do for you? I can make things work for you. I can get us assignments and pull strings and we can do it all over again. We were a good team. And if you refuse that offer, well.’ He spread out his hands, palms up and looked her directly in the eyes. ‘I can make things really difficult for you. I know a lot of people.’
Becky glared at him. ‘Yes. And so do I. And I know the ones who will accept the fact I’m a professional, freelance journalist, and you are a useless, talentless idiot who doesn’t even know how to handle your own life, never mind anyone else’s. You think if you ring up and report things about me, it’ll make them want to work with you?’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘Think about it. Who’ll come out of it the best? And who’s got the work on her hard drive, emailed to herself, for every damn article we ever did together that went out under our joint names? Oh. That would be me. Because you were too busy playing shag-buddies with the dog-walker to do any bloody work. And Jon isn’t a fruit-loop or whatever you called him. He’s a friend, and he’s more of a friend than you ever were. And the fact is, I can’t afford to waste any more of my life with someone like you, Seb. It’s over. Accept it. Move on.’
Seb stared at her. This wasn’t exactly the way he’d imagined this panning out, if he was honest. In his mind, she had accepted his terms and crumpled into a sobbing heap, declaring her life was worth nothing if he wasn’t in it.
Of course he knew that those articles were all her work – he’d had very little input, if you didn’t count the input he’d had in the starlets themselves. And that was something he was conscious of. If Becky wasn’t working with him, he’d have to do it all himself and he knew he wasn’t the best at it. That was how it had worked between them so well and for so long. He had once appreciated the fact that she was feisty and bloody-minded. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
Becky looked at him one last time and shook her head. All the fight seemed to have gone out of her.
‘You are unbelievable,’ she said quietly. ‘Please. Just get out of my life. Things are hard enough right now without you around.’
‘One last thing,’ he said, holding his forefinger up. He dropped his voice to match hers. ‘I managed to book a room at the hotel. I will be here for a few more days. You think about what I’ve said to you and about everything – and I mean everything – that’s already happened. Then you can tell me whether you think it’ll work out for you in this industry or not.’
‘Goodbye, Seb,’ replied Becky. ‘Thanks for your concern, but I don’t need you. At all. I never did.’
She turned away and headed off into the darkness before he could reply. She disappeared behind some shrubs, and was swallowed up in the night.
Now he was alone, Seb shivered and looked around. He didn’t actually like it in that summer house, he suddenly decided. One of the lanterns creaked as it swung in a breeze that he couldn’t feel and it sounded horribly like a man, shifting his weight from one foot to the other on loose floorboards as he squared himself up for a fight.
Seb didn’t hang about. He hurried away, back to the hotel using the quickest, most well-lit route he could find.
Becky would come round to his way of thinking.
Otherwise, what hope did they both have?
It was dark outside and the wind hadn’t abated, but at least the rain had stopped. Jon walked around the perimeter of the hotel. He could make out the skeletal shapes of trees, the branches waving madly in the wind. He saw the two of them sitting on a seat in the courtyard at the back of the hotel. A pool of light fell onto them from a lamp – the sort of lamp they had lining the driveway to the hotel. Becky’s words about Narnia came back to him from earlier and he again felt the anger rise as he realised that, for all his diversionary techniques, the mere fact that Becky had left her wet coat lying behind the counter had caused all this. Neither one of them had thought that Seb would have had the gall to search for her as he had done. The man clearly couldn’t accept rejection.
Jon kept close to the edge of the building, watching the couple in the lamplight, wondering what Seb was saying to her. They were, as far as he could tell, turned towards each other, a stiff sort of formality between them. Becky sat very straight, her hands folded on her knee while Seb was the more animated of the two. Jon felt unaccountably angry at his performance. And if Becky decided to believe him and give him another chance; well, he didn’t want to think about that scenario. He crept closer to them, feeling more of a stalker than Seb had been.
Jon was disturbed by a rustling in the undergrowth to his left. There was a high hedge there with a small gate he could just make out in the shadows. An entrance to the gardens, he assumed, a piece of the old Carrick Park left behind to enable guests to take a little wander in the gardens after dinner. It was probably lovely on a warm summer evening, strolling around the lawns with a glass of wine in your hand. It didn’t seem as appealing in November, somehow.
He peered through the darkness and heard footsteps hurrying towards him from the gardens. There was a little, wheezing breath coming with them, as if someone had been running or walking too quickly in the bitter temperatures. He pressed himself against the wall, hoping that whoever it was didn’t see him and take him as a prowler, simultaneously wishing that they would hurry up and get past him, so he could creep ever closer to Becky and Seb. Well, okay; so he was a bit of a prowler, he conceded, but only for that moment in time. To his horror, a security light flashed on as the person broke the beam, which must have been linked to the area next to the gate. Instinctively he closed his eyes at the bright light, appalled at the fact that he had been caught out looking exceedingly guilty. Too late, he tried to throw himself to the right, around the corner, away from the glare.
‘Jon?’ Becky’s voice. And she sounded, yes, out of breath, but also rather shocked to see him there – as she would be, really, he conceded again.
Jon opened his eyes painfully, the light seeming to sear into his retinas, so used had he become to the soft darkness of the grounds and the small pool of light in the courtyard. ‘Everything okay?’ he asked weakly.
‘Fine, thanks,’ said Becky. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I was coming to save you from Seb,’ said Jon, even more weakly.
‘Save me?’ repeated Becky. She opened her eyes wide. The light, he realised with a pinch of annoyance, wasn’t bothering her, was it?
Jon shrugged. He didn’t really have an answer for her. He spread his hands out in front of him helplessly.
Becky’s eyes flicked down to them and back up to his face. ‘Please don’t do that,’ she said. ‘Seb just did that and it did not endear him to me. But do you know what? I did wonder if you were going to punch him earlier, because that might have been quite interesting. I feel like punching him myself now. Anyway, I think he’s finally got the message, so there’s really no need to rescue me.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I haven’t a clue. I left him at the summer house. It’s all floodlit and it’s really pretty. If you’re with the right person, that is. I told him how I felt; I told him he was out of order.’ She smiled derisively. ‘And then I just wanted some space, so I came back the long way.’
‘How did you know there was a long way and a short way?’ asked Jon. ‘And considering the long way doesn’t appear to have any floodlighting.’
Becky dropped her eyes. ‘I just did,’ she said. ‘And I have excellent night vision.’
They had gone back to the house through the rain-drenched gardens, and Ella had run up the staircase. He had followed her up to the first landing and reached out to stop her before sh
e took the flight towards the left wing.
‘When we are married, I shall have your portrait hung right there.’ He pointed to a space on the landing wall …
Jon made a little involuntary noise and started. Becky must have caught the movement and she looked up at him quickly.
‘Never mind,’ said Jon. His voice was tight. ‘You don’t have to tell me the details.’ Then his voice hardened. It was as if he wasn’t the one formulating the words, but he was the one speaking them. ‘But if he comes near you again, I shall not be responsible for my actions.’
It was at that point, Jon remembered the couple in the courtyard. He spun around to face the area. He shouldn’t really have been surprised to see that the courtyard was empty and that there wasn’t even a seat in it; but he was.
The rest of the evening was spoiled, of course, the spectre of Seb hanging over them as they had dinner. Becky lost count of the times that Jon opened his mouth and tried to apologise. She did a fine job of ignoring him after the first dozen or so attempts and she knew that he knew it. She felt rather flat and all the delight of discovering the fireplace had evaporated; even the puzzle of the photograph on the mantelpiece was forgotten. Becky truly didn’t know what Seb had done after she had left him at the summer house. If he had tried to follow her, he would have been unsuccessful – Ella had guided her beautifully, she realised. She had woven in and out of trees and hedges, following tiny, overgrown pathways that had been neglected for years. Once, she had stopped by a tree and stood, looking around her, for a clue as to where she must go next. She had touched her fingertips to the tree, looking up at the storm-grey clouds sailing across the velvet sky and wondered if she could get a better sense of Ella out here – out in familiar grounds. Even if the pathways were dark, it was not the darkness of St Mary’s, that darkness which had scared her that afternoon. This was a familiar darkness and as such, she felt safe.