by Jill Mansell
“Sorry about the blood,” Sean told the barman. He slid a couple of tenners out of his wallet. Glancing down, he noticed splashes of blood on the front of his own white shirt. Well, a split lip had a tendency to gush. At least the man on the floor wasn’t spitting out teeth.
“Do you know him?” asked Sean when the stranger had finally dragged himself to his feet and, with a malevolent glance over his shoulder, left the pub.
“No.” The young barman shook his head and gave Sean a sympathetic look in return. “But he knows you.”
* * *
He arrived back at two thirty to find the house deserted. Wanting to tell Pandora what had happened—for some reason, laying out that nutter in the pub had cheered him up—Sean did a bit of detective work.
The kettle was stone-cold, so she hadn’t just gone out. He could detect a faint whiff of her perfume in the air, so she was unlikely to have taken Rose to the park. But the stroller was still here. So was Pandora’s car, minus its child seat. This meant they had been taken out by someone else. Giving up, Sean helped himself to a can of lager from the fridge. On his way through to the sitting room, he almost broke his foot on a dopey-looking Duplo giraffe.
The phone rang within minutes. Sean, convinced it was Pandora, didn’t wait for the machine to pick up the call. He lay back on the sofa, balancing his lager can on his stomach, and reduced the volume of music blaring from the stereo.
“Yes?”
“Is that Sean?”
Damn. Not Pandora at all. But the voice was both sexy and female. It also belonged to someone Sean felt he dimly recalled. He didn’t put the phone down. Instead, with extreme caution, he said, “Mm.”
“Sean, how are you? Gemma Hogan,” exclaimed the voice. “You probably don’t remember me, but I did a piece on you last year for the Clarion.”
Sean remembered. Gemma in the flesh had been something of a disappointment, one of those girls whose physical attributes didn’t match up to her voice. But the article she had written had been a charming one, and as a journalist, she was less awful than most. Nor, he realized, could he spend the rest of his life refusing to speak to the press.
“Go on.” He pinged the side of his can, watching it sway like one of those bottom-heavy punchbag dolls. Not unlike Gemma herself in fact. “Go ahead, say it. The series stinks, I’m past it, and what are my plans for the future?” Barely pausing for breath, Sean went on, “Well, I thought I’d probably do the decent thing and stick my head in the oven. It’s called going for the sympathy vote. At least it might stop the ratings sliding into negative figures—”
“Actually,” Gemma Hogan said, sounding almost apologetic, “I was going to ask how you felt about the competition from your girlfriend. Is there any rivalry between the two of you, now that her own TV series is about to go into production?”
A long silence followed.
Finally, Sean said, “Which girlfriend?”
It was Gemma Hogan’s turn to be taken aback. “Your girlfriend. Pandora, of course.”
“Somebody’s made a mistake here.” Sean paused to take a mouthful of lager. “Pandora doesn’t have a TV series.”
Another hesitation. Then Gemma said, “Um…yes, she does.”
* * *
Pandora was wearing makeup and a pink dress Sean had never seen before. She came into the sitting room carrying Rose’s car seat.
“Oh.” She stopped when she saw Sean lying with his feet up on the sofa and was promptly cannoned into from behind by Donny, carrying Rose. Rose, in turn, waved a silver-and-white helium balloon in one hand and half a rapidly melting ice cream cone in the other.
“What’s this?” Sean drawled into the ensuing frozen silence. “Been playing happy families without me?”
“Donny took us out to lunch.” The look in Pandora’s brown eyes was defiant. As she sat down, Sean caught another waft of the perfume he had bought for her. She was wearing high heels too. Pale-pink ones, to match the dress. He hadn’t seen her this done up in years.
“Lunch. Great. Don’t tell me; it’s your birthday.”
“You know it isn’t.” Evenly, Pandora said, “Look, I’m sorry you came home and didn’t know where I was, but I thought you were out for the day.”
“So you thought you may as well make the most of it.” Through narrowed eyes, Sean observed the trusting way Rose’s chubby, brown fingers curled around Donny’s neck. She seemed entirely comfortable being held by him. The happy families jibe hadn’t been so wide of the mark. They looked, thought Sean with a lurch of anger, like a happy bloody family.
“Nothing’s been going on, man.”
Donny felt it was his duty to say as much, since that was clearly what was on Sean’s mind.
“You mean apart from the fact that my best friend has been seeing my girlfriend behind my back.” Sean’s smile was icy, unamused. “Not to mention playing surrogate daddy to my child. What the fuck else hasn’t been going on, may I ask?” His gaze flickered in Pandora’s direction. “Next you’ll be telling me you haven’t written your own TV series.”
“Ah.” Pandora looked defensive. “I was going to tell you about that.”
“Do it now,” said Sean. “Tell me everything. Just blurt the whole sodding lot out. TV shows…affairs…everything. Believe it or not, I’m interested.”
“You hypocritical bastard.” Donny passed Rose, who was beginning to whimper, across to Pandora. “It’s OK for you to do whatever the hell you want, isn’t it? You just don’t like it when it’s done back to you. Except Pandora hasn’t even done it back to you—”
“Oh, well, maybe she should,” Sean hissed. If he was being irrational, he no longer cared. As Rose’s whimpering escalated to a full-blown wail, he raised his own voice to be heard above it. “Do you know what I did today? Decked some lunatic for telling me I should have stuck with my own kind. I’ll probably get arrested for assault.”
Pandora, horrified, said, “What?”
“I know. Ironic, isn’t it?” Sean shot her a look of disgust. “There I was defending you, and now it seems he was right all along. Because while I was punching the guy’s lights out, what were you doing? Sticking with your own kind.”
* * *
Pandora eventually persuaded Donny to leave.
“It’s OK. I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “He’s had two shocks in one day. We just need to talk things through.”
“Phone if you need me.” Donny was reluctant to go, but Pandora was standing firm. Not for the first time, he wished he could have chosen someone easier to fall in love with.
“Go home.” Pandora smiled. “You never know. That girl you left in your bed this morning might still be there.”
With his luck, Donny thought gloomily, she bloody would.
Chapter 48
“I didn’t want to tell you about the TV thing until I knew for sure it was going ahead,” said Pandora. “And you weren’t exactly thrilled the last time I wrote something. I wasn’t trying to cash in on your fame either. We sent the script in under the name P. J. Grant. The producers assumed I was a man.”
Dusk had fallen outside. Rose was upstairs asleep in her crib. They were, Sean realized, having their most in-depth conversation in almost two years. He found himself by turns both enlightened and confused. Particularly noticeable was the change in Pandora.
Sean didn’t know if it was due to Donny’s interest in her—because even if they weren’t sleeping with each other, it was pretty obvious the lecherous bastard wished they were—or to the fact that she had, according to Gemma Hogan, evidently written the sitcom of the year. Either way, the difference was there. He couldn’t think how he hadn’t noticed it before. It was as if the old Pandora, the one he had met and fallen for with such dizzying intensity, was back.
“Well?” she prompted when he didn’t react. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
Slo
wly, Sean nodded. “Well done.”
Pandora looked wary. It was hard to tell sometimes if he was being sarcastic.
“I mean it,” Sean said. “I felt pretty stupid, I can tell you, getting caught out on the phone earlier. I wish I had known about it, but I can understand why you put off telling me.” He paused, then patted the space on the sofa next to him. “By all accounts, you’ve written a terrific script. You deserve to be congratulated. And I am proud of you. I like your dress too. Why don’t you come and sit over here?”
“I’m not having an affair with Donny.” Pandora needed to make sure he understood. It felt strange, sitting next to Sean. When he put his arm around her, the gesture was oddly intimate, more so than being in bed together. It was these small, affectionate gestures she had missed so much.
“I know you aren’t.” A smile flickered at the corners of Sean’s mouth. “You had me worried though. Is it true what they say about black men?”
“On the grounds that it might incriminate me, no comment.” Unable to resist it, Pandora added, “Better ask Donny.”
Sean raised his eyebrows to heaven. “Donny’s the one who keeps telling me it’s true.”
* * *
It was inevitable that they would end up making love. What amazed them both was the renewed intensity of their feelings for each other, the absolute rightness of it all. At midnight, perspiring and sated, they lay happily in bed sharing chilled nectarines, Kraft cheese slices, and wafer-thin prosciutto, the only picnic-type food Sean had been able to find in the fridge.
“You still haven’t told me properly what happened in that pub at lunchtime.” Pandora’s head rested against his bare chest. She found it hard to believe Sean had actually punched someone. “Did this bloke really just come up to you and start ranting, or had you said something to him first?”
“For once, I’m blameless.” Sean lobbed the last nectarine stone out through the open window and licked the juice from his fingers. He ran through the brief exchange, word for word. “More great publicity,” he concluded with heavy irony, “if I get arrested as a result.”
“Well, I’m proud of you. People like that deserve all they get. I never know how to—” Pandora abruptly stopped and bit her lip.
“You never know how to what?” But Sean guessed at once. Outraged, he sat bolt upright in bed. “React? Was that what you were going to say? When people shout racist abuse in public? Nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before!”
“Maybe I’m an easier target than you are.” They were being so honest with each other, Pandora thought she may as well tell him. “I’ve had the occasional awful phone call too. And leaflets shoved through the door. Some people just can’t bear the idea of us being together, I suppose.”
“Jesus.” Sean’s eyes blazed with anger. It had never occurred to him that Pandora had been forced to suffer as a result of her relationship with him. “Ignorant fucking bastards.” He was shaking, ready to go out and take on the world. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
“I suppose I thought it wasn’t your problem,” Pandora lied.
Sean saw through that too. He had behaved like a pig toward her. His arms tightened around her.
“You mean you thought I wouldn’t care.”
* * *
The police station was situated less than five hundred yards from the pub. Sean walked into it the next morning and spoke to the duty sergeant on the front desk.
“I hit someone yesterday. I wondered if they’d reported the incident. My name’s Sean Mandeville.”
“Oh yes, sir. That incident certainly has been reported.” The policeman nodded several times. Overweight and fiftyish, he had pendulous jowls that swung as he spoke. “I dealt with the gentleman in question myself, yesterday afternoon.”
Sean’s heart sank, though it was no more than he had expected. “He did provoke me.” He looked resigned. “So what happens next? What do I do now? Find myself a lawyer, I suppose.”
“If I were you, sir, I’d go home and forget all about it.”
Sean shook his head. “I don’t want this thing hanging over me. I’d rather get it out of the way.”
“Look, sir, the incident was reported, but it wasn’t written down.”
Was the sergeant, Sean wondered, trying not to smile?
“The gentleman concerned is, shall we say…well-known to us here at the station. Pops in most days, as a matter of fact, to report some incident or other. You hit him, you say?”
All Sean could do was nod.
“Yes, well. No sign of any injuries, sir, by the time he reached us. So we’ll just leave it at that, shall we? Off you go.”
“Right.” Hugely relieved, Sean nodded again. He smiled. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“Pleasure, sir.” This time, the jowls were definitely quivering. “One more thing…”
Sean was on his way out the station door. He turned. “Yes?”
The sergeant, who had watched the first disastrous episode while taping it for his teenage daughter, gave him a kindly wink.
“Liked the joke about the penguin, sir. Shame about the rest of the show.”
Chapter 49
It came to something, thought Sophie, when your mother was more delighted with the results of your GCSEs than you were.
Since discovering over breakfast that her brilliant daughter had scored the darts equivalent of 180—ten flawless grade As—Cass had barely come down to earth. Sophie hadn’t even been able to get to the phone to compare grades with her friends from school because her mother had spent the whole morning hogging the thing, broadcasting the news to everyone she knew.
“And don’t you dare mention it on air,” Sophie warned when Cass finally had to give in and leave for work. “I’ll be mortified. It’ll look as if you’re bragging.”
“I will be bragging.” Cass beamed. “I’m entitled to brag. What’s more, we’re going to have a party to celebrate. I’ve just decided. Then I’ll be able to brag some more.”
“Who are you going to invite?” Sophie looked suspicious. “Your friends or mine?”
“Don’t glare at me like that, sweetheart. Everyone.”
* * *
“Saturday night,” Jack mused when Cass phoned him that evening. “Damn, we’ve already been asked to something then. I’ll need to cancel it.”
“Sophie would want you to be here.” Cass held her breath. Sophie wasn’t the only one.
“And I wouldn’t miss her party for the world.” Jack sounded deeply offended. “Sophie’s my daughter, Cass. We’ll definitely be there.”
We? She squirmed at the sound of the dreaded W-word. “Um, it’s kind of a family celebration.” Cass spoke rapidly. The last thing she wanted was Imogen spoiling the whole night. “I meant just you.”
“Oh, dear, come on now.”
She heard Jack assume his let’s-be-sensible tone of voice. An involuntary shudder went down her spine.
“Be fair, Cass. How long is it now since we separated? We’re mature adults. You have your own life to lead, and I have mine, and it’s certainly time we put an end to this silly feud.”
“Silly feud?” Cass stared at the phone in disbelief.
“Well, you know what I mean. Be reasonable,” Jack urged. “You can’t spend the rest of your life inviting me to family events and leaving Imogen out. It doesn’t make sense.”
It made perfect sense to Cass, but she realized this was one argument she was destined not to win. If she stuck to her guns, Jack might refuse to come to the party at all.
“You were friends once,” he went on when she didn’t speak.
“That makes it worse,” Cass coldly informed him, “not better.”
“Oh, well, in that case—”
“OK, OK,” she sighed before he had a chance to start making his excuses. “Imogen can come too
. I’ll be polite. Just don’t expect me to fling my arms around her and give her a big kiss, that’s all.”
* * *
“Right,” said Cleo, marching unannounced into Sophie’s bedroom on Saturday afternoon and expertly plucking the August edition of National Geographic from her sister’s grasp. “Time for a spring clean.” National Geographic hit the wall and slid down behind the bed. “And I’m the one who’s going to do it.”
“A, it isn’t spring,” Sophie pointed out. “B, Mrs. Bedford deals with all that. And C, never mind a whole bedroom, you have enough trouble cleaning candy wrappers out of your car.”
“I’m not talking bedrooms. You’re the one in need of the spring clean.”
“Ugh.” Like an eel, Sophie slithered out of reach just as Cleo made a grab for her. “Don’t! You aren’t allowed! This is my day, and everyone has to be nice to me. Even you.”
“I’m sorry.” Employing a change of tactics, Cleo collapsed onto the narrow, book-strewn bed. “I’m trying to be nice. That’s why I want to do you up for tonight, make you look wonderful. Pleeease,” she wheedled. “Don’t you think you owe it to your guests to make some kind of effort? Sweetheart, you can’t just roll downstairs in a horrid T-shirt and yucky old jeans.”
Sophie scowled. It wasn’t a horrid T-shirt; it was a perfectly decent, turquoise-and-white Save the Whale one. She had even given it a once-over with the iron.
But Cleo wasn’t nearly ready to give up.
“Pleeeease,” she said again, jumping to her feet and frog-marching Sophie across the room. Flinging open the wardrobe door, she pointed Sophie in the direction of the mirror. “Now, isn’t there heaps of room for improvement? If only for Mum’s and Dad’s sakes…”
Sophie seldom bothered to examine her reflection, but Cleo had her shoulders in a viselike grip. Finally, with a weary shrug, she said, “OK, so maybe it wouldn’t kill me. Just for one night.” Her eyes bored into her sister’s. “But it had better not be anything drastic.”
* * *
Cleo was in heaven. This was TV makeover time, the kind of magical transformation that made you rub your eyes in disbelief. Even she, with all her experience, had never suspected Sophie could clean up so well. It really was gobsmacking…
