by Lynne Shelby
‘You weren’t yourself.’
‘Ryan is the love of my life,’ Cassie said. ‘I know that now. Now that he’s gone. When I woke up this morning, I reached for him and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t there. Then I remembered what I’d done, and I just felt so empty. I love Ryan. I love him so much it hurts. I ache for him.’
‘Then he’s the one you should be talking to. Not me. Call him, Cassie.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t,’ Cassie said. ‘I’ll only make things worse. I’ll wait for him to call me.’
‘And what if he doesn’t?’
‘If he wants to get back with me, he’ll call.’
Not according to what Fabio told me this morning, I thought. ‘Well, you know him a lot better than I do, but –’
‘Yes, I do,’ Cassie said. ‘And I’m not calling him. So don’t ask me to.’
She needs to call him, I thought. At a loss as to what I could do or say to convince her, I picked up a knife and took out my frustration on a cucumber.
For a few minutes, Cassie sat silently staring into space, then she said, ‘I must look a state. I’m going to go and wash my face.’
‘OK, hun,’ I said. ‘When you’ve done that, would you go up to the studio and tell the others that I’m just putting the rice on?’
‘Sure,’ Cassie said.
Relationships are complicated, I thought. Friends shouldn’t interfere.
I waited until the sound of Cassie’s footsteps told me she’d gone upstairs to the bathroom. Then I fished my mobile out of the back pocket of my jeans, and called Ryan Fleet.
CHAPTER 30
‘Is anyone still hungry?’ my mother asked. ‘We’ve eaten all the rice, but there’s more chilli, if anyone would like it. Owen?’
‘Yes, please, Laura.’
My mother ladled a second helping of chilli con carne onto Owen’s plate. ‘Anyone else?’
There was a chorus of groans and ‘It was delicious – but I’m full,’ and ‘It was amazing, but I couldn’t eat another mouthful.’
‘Well, if you change your minds,’ my mother said, ‘you can help yourselves.’
Various conversations sprang up around the kitchen table. Owen, between mouthfuls of chilli, talked to my mother about auditions, rehearsals, and first nights. Stephen told Cassie a long, involved and very funny story about the discovery by a fellow artist and friend of his, of what he thought was an unknown painting by Picasso, which turned out to be a fake. Dylan mentioned to no-one in particular that a group of his friends were going to Ibiza next summer, and he was thinking about going with them. Stephen smiled wryly and said that a summer abroad would no doubt be of great benefit to his development as an artist, as the light was very different in the Med, especially in the beach bars. I let the talk flow around me and (1) wondered if my phone call to Ryan would have the result I wanted, and (2) worried that I should never have made the call. My mother started to collect up the empty plates. There was a knock on the front door.
The table fell silent. Cassie froze in the act of handing her plate to my mother, a look of terror on her face.
‘The press are here,’ she said. ‘They’ve found me.’
‘That’s not possible, Cassie,’ Owen said. ‘No-one knows you’re at this address. Lucy didn’t even tell me where we were going until we were on the motorway.’
I thought, I didn’t give anyone this address, except Ryan.
Dylan said, ‘Shall I see who it is?’
‘I’ll go,’ I said, quickly. I hurried out into the hall, and opened the front door. An unshaven, wild-eyed Ryan Fleet stood on the doorstep.
‘Hello, Ryan,’ I said.
‘Lucy.’ He raked his hand through his hair. ‘What you said on the phone about me and Cassie, and one of us having to make the first move. I decided it might as well be me.’
I stood aside so that he could come into the hall.
‘Where is she?’ he said.
‘Through there.’ I was going to add that she was with my family and Owen, but Ryan was already striding past me into the kitchen. I shut the front door and trotted after him.
If he was taken aback to find himself facing a room full of people, three of them strangers, all of them gaping at him, he didn’t show it.
He said, ‘I’m Cassie’s footballer.’
Stephen said, ‘I rather thought you might be.’
‘Ryan…’ Cassie’s voice was scarcely louder than a whisper. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I had to see you,’ Ryan said. ‘You and I need to talk. Please, Cassie. Is there somewhere we can talk?’
My mother rolled her eyes. ‘Cassie,’ she said, ‘why don’t you take your… young man out into the garden?’
I flung open the door that led to the back garden, where my and Dylan’s old sandpit, now filled with earth and planted with herbs, still stood on the lawn. Cassie slowly got to her feet. Ryan held out his hand. She took it, and they went outside. I shut the door behind them.
‘I’m not one for gossip,’ my mother said, ‘but I’m guessing the Nation’s Sweethearts had a lovers’ quarrel and are now in the process of making up?’
‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘At least, I hope they’re making up, since it was me who told him she was here.’
Five minutes or so passed in which the silence was broken only by the ticking of the kitchen clock. It seemed a lot longer. Dylan went and stood by the kitchen sink, and peered cautiously out of the window.
‘Dylan!’ my mother said. ‘Get away from there. They’ll see you.’
‘No they won’t.’ Dylan looked back over his shoulder, grinning. ‘I’d say the making up is going pretty well.’
Owen and I hesitated for about two seconds before joining him at the window.
Out in the garden, bathed in the soft golden light of a summer evening, Cassie and Ryan were locked in an embrace, arms around each other, eyes shut, her head resting on his broad chest. He stroked her hair. She tilted up her chin towards him, and he bent his head and brushed her lips with his. They both opened their eyes. Ryan let his arms fall to his sides. He took a step away from Cassie, and knelt down on one knee on the grass.
‘We shouldn’t be watching this,’ I said.
‘No, we shouldn’t,’ Owen agreed.
My mother and Stephen came and stood behind us.
‘What’s happening?’ My mother said. ‘Oooh.’
‘We should so give them some privacy,’ I said. Nobody moved.
Ryan reached into the pocket of his jeans, and brought out a small red box. He opened it, and the rays of the setting sun caught the diamond within and turned it to liquid fire. Ryan said something to Cassie, and she smiled, almost shyly, and nodded her head. He slid the ring onto the third finger of her left hand. Then he stood up and crushed her to him, his mouth on hers, holding her close as though he’d never let her go.
‘I think she said “yes,”’ Dylan said.
‘Another lamb to the slaughter,’ my mother said, but she too was smiling. We all were.
Over an hour later, the back door opened and Cassie and Ryan came into the kitchen hand in hand. The rest of us, seated demurely at the kitchen table, looked at them expectantly.
Cassie held up her left hand so that we could see her ring and said, ‘We’re getting married!’
There followed several minutes of shrieking (me and Cassie) hugging (me, Cassie and Ryan), manly shaking of hands (Ryan, Owen, Stephen and Dylan) and warm congratulations from my mother.
‘Marriage doesn’t suit everyone, Cassie,’ she said, ‘but if it’s right for you and Ryan, if it’s what you both want, then I wish you every happiness.’
Stephen opened a bottle of Cava to toast the happy couple which, it seemed to me, tasted a lot better than the champagne I’d drunk the first time Cassie and Ryan had announced they were getting married. Owen said he wouldn’t have a drink, because he had to drive back to London, but then chang
ed his mind and said he might as well stay the night and drive back first thing in the morning. Cassie and Ryan drank a glass of fizz, talked about cabs and hotels and then decided that they too would stay. My mother produced fresh French bread, numerous cheeses, and grapes, which we all devoured. Dylan fetched his sketchpad and sat at the kitchen table scratching away with a stick of charcoal. Stephen put on some music. Owen dragged me to my feet and danced me around the kitchen. My mother opened another bottle of wine and re-filled everyone’s glasses. Even Cassie had a second glass.
Late in the evening, Cassie and I went out into the garden to get some air.
‘I’m going to be Ryan Fleet’s wife,’ Cassie said. ‘When people ask me my name, I shall say ‘I am Mrs Fleet’. And it’s thanks to you, Lucy. If you hadn’t phoned him…’
‘You’d have called him, or he’d have called you, eventually.’
‘Perhaps. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because you got us back on track.’ Cassie smiled happily. ‘I wanted to ask you something, Lucy. Would you be my bridesmaid?’
‘Oh, Cassie, I’d love that!’
Cassie beamed. ‘It’s going to be a very quiet wedding, just us and a few close friends and family. We’re determined not to have any more celebrity couple nonsense.’
‘What? No photo shoots? No magazine deals? Are you sure you and that footballer are getting married?’
Cassie laughed. ‘We are so getting married. Ryan proposed to me and I said “yes”. And this time it was for all the right reasons.’
‘You can’t live without each other? You want to grow old together? You want to make babies? You love each other to bits?’
‘All of the above. Plus Ryan’s really hot.’
Dylan came out into the garden carrying a sheet of paper.
‘This is for you and Ryan,’ he said, handing the paper to Cassie. ‘An engagement present.’
‘Oh, Dyl, it’s wonderful,’ Cassie said. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Enough light was spilling out of the house for me to see that Cassie was holding a charcoal drawing of her and Ryan seated next to each other at the kitchen table, hands clasped, gazing into each other’s eyes. Anyone who saw that drawing would know that it was a portrait of a man and woman deeply in love.
‘Your brother is seriously talented,’ Cassie said to me.
‘Yeah, he is,’ I said. ‘I forget that sometimes. What with him being my brother. Don’t tell him I said this, but I think he could be famous one day.’
‘As long as he’s famous for his art, and not for getting drunk in nightclubs,’ Cassie said. ‘I had a phase of getting drunk in nightclubs, but I’ve grown out of it now.’
‘Falling out of nightclubs drunk is so last year,’ I said.
Dylan grinned, and wandered back inside the house.
‘Ryan and I are going to have to be up early tomorrow,’ Cassie said. ‘We want to get back to London before the rush hour.’
‘Laura and Stephen wouldn’t mind if you stayed on a few days. If you wanted to give the media frenzy a bit more time to die down.’
‘Oh, I’m not bothered about a few photographers. Tomorrow morning, Ryan is driving me to the Snowdrop studios, and if the press are lying in wait for me, I’ll just smile at them and say “no comment”. So what if they invent a few stories about my love life? I really don’t care.’
Who are you, I thought, and what have you done with my friend Cassie? Aloud, I said, ‘You’re going to the studios? You’ve changed your mind about not working next week?’
‘I’ve not missed a day’s filming in eight years. I’m not about to let everyone down now that there’s only one more episode of the show left to film. I’m not a diva, even if I did behave like one yesterday.’
‘You’re a star, Cassie, a real star.’
‘I’m a professional actress who’s had a lead role in a children’s TV show, and is now looking to audition for her next job.’
‘And you’re getting married.’
‘Yes, I am. Anyway, what about you, Lucy? What are you going to do?’
‘Oh, I expect I’ll get married one day. If anybody ever asks me.’
‘I meant, what are you doing tomorrow? Will you stay on here, or would you like a lift back to London?’
I thought for a moment. Much as I enjoyed visiting my family, they wouldn’t be free to spend time with me tomorrow as they’d all be working. And with Cassie’s life sorted, and Ryan driving her to the studios, I’d be rattling round my mother’s house on my own. If I travelled back to London tomorrow morning, I’d have the rest of the day to catch up on a few chores and the next day I could go into Reardon Haye at my usual time.
‘I may as well go back to town tomorrow,’ I said, ‘but I’ll get a lift with Owen. He won’t have to leave quite so early in the morning as you, and he can drop me at your house before he takes the car back to Michael.’
Cassie smiled. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away from Daniel much longer.’
Daniel. ‘Absolutely,’ I said. I hadn’t thought about Daniel all night. What sort of girlfriend was I? ‘Actually, I think I’ll give him a quick call now. I left my phone in the kitchen.’
Cassie and I went back into the house, and I located my mobile on the kitchen worktop. I had one missed call from Daniel, but no voice messages or texts. Racked with guilt that I hadn’t called him sooner, I hit his number on my speed dial, but his phone rang out and went to voice mail. I left yet another message for him to call me, said I’d be driving back to London in the morning, and would call him when I got there if I hadn’t heard from him. I texted him as well. Then, before I could think of a reason why I simply had to be at my desk, I texted Eleanor, telling her that all was well with Cassie, but I’d like to take the rest of the week off as holiday. That would give me more than enough time to devote to Daniel.
By now it was gone midnight. My mother and Stephen had already gone to bed, and Cassie and Ryan and Owen vanished soon after, their status as guests allocating them the other bedrooms, leaving my brother and me to fight over the sofa and a blow up mattress.
Dylan had left his sketchbook on the kitchen table, and while he went off to fetch us pillows and blankets, I idly flicked through the pages. There were some studies of inanimate objects, but mostly he’d drawn people, Laura and Stephen, girls and boys his own age, some I recognised as his friends, and men and women in the street. Towards the end of the book I found the sketches he’d done that night, a picture of all of us sitting around the kitchen table, several unfinished sketches of Cassie and Ryan, a drawing of Owen and me laughing, Owen pouring me a glass of wine, Owen and me dancing close together, his hand on the small of my back as he kept me moving in time to the music.
When Dylan came back into the kitchen, laden with bedding, I said, ‘I’ve been looking at your sketchbook. You’ve drawn some great pictures of me and Owen.’
‘I draw what I see,’ Dylan said.
I studied the picture of Owen and me dancing.
‘This is such a good likeness of both of us,’ I said. ‘The only thing is, the way you’ve positioned our heads, it looks like we’re about to kiss.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ Dylan said. ‘You’d better not show that picture to your boyfriend.’
‘Oh, Daniel wouldn’t care,’ I said. ‘He’s knows he doesn’t have to be jealous of Owen.’
‘He should be.’ Dylan grinned. ‘Admit it, Lucy. You and Owen are more than just good friends. Anyone can see it.’
I sighed in exasperation. Dylan might be an artistic prodigy, but he was still my annoying little brother.
‘You are so wrong,’ I said.
CHAPTER 31
‘Your family are great,’ Owen said to me, as we sped south on the motorway.
‘They are,’ I agreed. ‘They liked you too.’
Owen had got on really well my parents and Dylan. I really ought to get around to introducing Daniel to them as well, I thought. And I s
hould meet his family at some point. He didn’t talk about them very often, but I knew that he had a brother and a sister who still lived at home with his parents. All they knew about me was what they’d read in the gossip columns.
Owen said, ‘I usually get on fine with other people’s parents. It’s my own I have a problem with. I could never turn up at their house with a bunch of friends at short notice. I only visit them myself when I get a formal invitation and my sister tells me I can’t refuse.’
‘I might take Daniel to meet my family the next time I visit,’ I said. ‘I’d like them to have a chance to really get to know him, and forget that he’s a celebrity.’
‘Your family didn’t seem particularly overawed by the international footballer,’ Owen said. ‘I’m sure they’ll cope with the film star. Have they seen Fallen Angel?’
‘Yes, we all watched the DVD together last Christmas.’ Suddenly, I remembered how uncomfortable I’d felt watching the film alongside my parents and Dylan. ‘Now I think about it, I wish they hadn’t seen it. Especially the love scenes. It’s going to be kind of weird introducing him to them after that.’
Owen laughed. ‘That awkward moment when your parents realise that they’ve seen your naked boyfriend having simulated sex…’
‘Not helping, Owen.’
He was still laughing
‘Would you be happy to get your kit off for a film? I’m asking as your agent?’
‘If I thought the part called for it, and I was being paid enough, I wouldn’t hesitate.’
‘What about a stage play? Would you find it intimidating to be naked in front of a live audience?’
‘No, I really wouldn’t. I have great abs, remember.’
Suddenly, ridiculously, I was embarrassed. To cover my confusion, I switched on the car radio, which was tuned to a sports channel. Not my ideal choice of listening on a car journey, but Owen was keen to hear yesterday’s results. At least it prevented further discussion about his abs.