by Frances Pye
“What happens if you wait until tomorrow?”
“Lily, don’t joke about this.”
“What happens if you wait until tomorrow?”
“You’re serious. I can’t believe you’re asking me. We agreed. Whenever the time was right, I would get Sean.”
“What happens?…What fucking happens?”
“You know what happens. I can still conceive. I told you at the start of all this. There’s a two-day window. So yes, I could wait until tomorrow. But the more often you do it, the more likely it is to happen. I need him tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Jules.” Hell. This was supposed to be easy. Fun. Sharing her man with her friends. She hadn’t expected there would be a clash. Nor that she would feel so possessive. But it wasn’t that. No, course it wasn’t. It was only that she needed Sean herself. She was up for an award for the first time and was already feeling terrified with over ten hours to go. God knew what she would be like when the show started. She couldn’t imagine going through with it without Sean’s support.
“Two nights, that’s all I want. If I’m lucky, that’s all I’ll need. It’s not so much to ask. After all, you’ve been with him all these weeks, whenever you wanted.”
“He’s mine, Jules. Mine to give. Mine to withhold.” This was unfair. Why should she have to give up her night? She’d been thinking about these awards, worrying about them, for weeks. What to wear. What to do if she won best comedy actress. If We Can Work It Out won comedy of the year. What to do if she lost. She needed Sean. Jules could just as easily do it the following day, she’d admitted that.
“This whole thing was your idea. You thought of it. You planned it all. And now, at the first opportunity, you’re pulling out.” Jules started to cry. She had to have Sean. Why couldn’t Lily see that?
“I’m not pulling out.” The sound of Jules sobbing made Lily feel a bit guilty. No, a lot guilty. What was one night? She’d be fine. After all, it was only a lousy awards show. She’d call Raymond or Charlie or Nick. One of them would be free. “I want you to have him. I do. You’re right. I’ll find someone else.”
It was Jules’s turn to feel uncomfortable. Sean was Lily’s. This was an important night for her. And if she wanted him to escort her, she should be able to have him do so without some desperate-for-a-child friend crying in her ear and trying to take him and his sperm away. She’d always thought how hard it must be to go to one of those things, particularly alone. To run the gamut of all those photographers going in, then sit and wait for someone else’s name to be announced and pretend you were happy to have lost…“No. Of course you must have him. Tomorrow will be just as good. I’m sure it’ll make no difference. The books say forty-eight hours and they can’t be wrong, can they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I do. They can’t.”
“Let’s not find out. He’s yours.”
“No, yours.”
“Crap. Yours.”
“Lily. Yours.”
“Yours.”
“Yours. I insist.”
“Of course, we could do both.”
“What?”
“Well, he could come to the awards with me and then go on to you.”
“Would he?”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’ll be late. Won’t he be tired?”
“Tired? Sean? He, I’ll have you know, is always up for it. I’ll leave right after the comedy of the year thing, get the car to drop him at your place. Okay?”
“Lily, are you sure?”
“Course I’m sure.”
“Then, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are the best friend.”
“No I’m not.” The best friend would have given up the evening immediately. The best friend wouldn’t be feeling slightly queasy at the idea of Jules and Sean in bed together. “I’ve got to go. Enjoy yourself, okay? Call me in the morning.”
thirty-two
Jules walked from one hot, crowded, smoky room into another. The overblown fragrance of lilies mixed with the musk of expensive perfume and the aroma of hot canapés. Another very proper, quail’s-egg-and-vol-au-vent drinks party. What on earth was she doing here? When she could be tucked up at home, waiting for Sean? Coming to her old school friend’s gathering had felt like such a good idea only half an hour ago when the minutes until midnight and Sean’s estimated time of arrival seemed endless. She needed something to distract her, to make the time pass a bit more quickly, and the party had seemed perfect. She would have a couple of soft drinks—alcohol made it more difficult to conceive—see a few old acquaintances, stay for an hour or two, then go home and get herself and the house ready for Sean. Simple.
Instead, she had already run into three people she would have been pleased never to have seen again. The rooms were overfull and everyone was tipsy. Happily swigging back glass after glass of champagne. Apart from her. And there was nothing worse than being the only sober person in a room full of drunks.
“White shoes!” Jules heard a familiar, booming woman’s voice. “I tell you, the girl was wearing white shoes. In May!” She looked around and saw Jocelyn Hannesford-Jones gesturing her disgust to someone. A tall, solid, horsey woman with a deafening voice and all-weather skin, Jocelyn had been one of Jules’s first-ever clients. When she had been an eager twenty-three-year-old, struggling to make a name for herself, she had arranged a christening party for Jocelyn’s first child. It had been a big success and Jocelyn had recommended Dunne Parties to all her friends. Jules hadn’t seen her for ages, but she couldn’t help smiling at the sight of her. She was older, rounder, and much more leathery, but still the Jocelyn of fifteen years ago.
Jules snaked her way through the guests. “I was just standing there, regretting having come. And then I saw you.” Jules reached out and hugged Jocelyn. “How are you? How’s Christopher? And Annabel?”
“We’re fine. All fine. How are you? I hear great things about Dunne Parties.”
“Thanks to you. I don’t know what I’d have done without your wonderful recommendations.”
“Rubbish. You were bound to succeed. Anyone could see that.” Jocelyn stepped aside to reveal a tall, handsome man who was graying at the edges. And scowling. “Do you know Michael Hungerford?” she asked.
Jules took an involuntary step backward. Michael. It only needed that. Why, oh why, had she come? In an attempt to cover up her instinctive retreat and seem normal, Jules forced a smile, stepped forward, and held out her hand. “Michael. How are you?”
“Juliet.” He touched the tips of her fingers, no more.
If Jocelyn hadn’t been there, Jules would have turned and walked away. It was how she had always dealt with Michael on the few times they had met in the last eighteen years. Polite greeting followed by disappearance. But this called for something more. Jocelyn clearly hadn’t heard the old story—it had all happened a few years before the christening party and people had stopped talking about it by the time they met—or she wouldn’t have introduced them. And the last thing Jules wanted to do was embarrass Jocelyn. So she cast about for a topic of conversation.
“I was sorry to hear about you and Rose.” No, no, why did she say that? It was completely wrong. What on earth had made her mention his divorce?
Michael stared at Jules. Then turned to Jocelyn. “Good to see you, Jocelyn,” he said, then stalked off.
“What? Michael? What was that? I didn’t think he was so touchy about Rose. I was talking to him about her a few minutes ago.”
“It’s not Rose, Jocelyn. It’s me. He and I…I was engaged to him. Eighteen years ago.”
“Come with me.” Jocelyn took Jules’s arm, led her over to an empty couch, sat her down, and stood over her. “Now. You are not getting up until you tell me.”
“It was nothing.”
Jocelyn frowned down at Jules. “My dear, I am quite sure it was not nothing. The way Michael reacted to you was not like him at all. What on earth did you do?”
“I broke
it off. I don’t think he was very pleased.”
“You broke it off.”
“Yes.”
“That’s all you did?”
“Well…”
“It seems a long time for him to carry such a grudge.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t tell him as early as I might have done.”
“Jules. You left him standing at the altar.”
“No. Well, yes. A bit. I told him in advance of the wedding, but it was only a day before.”
“My dear! No wonder he won’t talk to you.”
“He was so keen. I was only twenty, I didn’t want to get married. But everyone was so pleased with me.” Everyone being her family. For the first time in her life, Jules’s family had approved of her. Loved her. Her mother, Diana, delighted in the fact that her daughter—her daughter—was going to marry the heir to an earldom, had lavished all the love on her that she had previously withheld. Jules became the apple and orange and pear of her mother’s ice-cold eye. Nothing was too good for her, nothing too expensive or precious or special.
She’d known she wasn’t ready to marry, that she needed to work, to have a career, to do things before she settled down. She didn’t want just to wed a powerful, wealthy man and spend the rest of her life bringing up his children, choosing her hat for Ascot, and opening church fetes. But the effect her engagement to Michael had on her family was too seductive. All her childhood she had longed for her mother’s approval and love; suddenly she had it. And it felt so wonderful she thought it was worth giving up her life to keep it. Until, the day before the wedding, she realized that she couldn’t go through with it. She was making a terrible mistake. Michael genuinely loved her and he deserved more than a woman who was marrying him to please her mother. He deserved someone who loved him back. And while Jules liked him a lot, she was not ready to marry anyone.
So she had walked out on him and the wedding. Her mother had never forgiven her. And it seemed that Michael hadn’t either.
“But you must have seen him since? You move in the same circles, know the same people? Surely you’ve talked before tonight?”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it? But we haven’t. A polite greeting once in a while, no more. A ‘how do you do’ and that’s been it. Of course, he hasn’t been round much, particularly since he married, had kids, and then inherited. I’ve seen him no more than three times since I stood him up. Until tonight.” Jules’s face crumpled in on itself. “Gosh, why, why did I have to mention Rose? After all that expensive education, you would think I could manage a bland comment or two about the weather. I’m so stupid. I could at least have been polite. The last thing he deserves from me is to be upset. Or insulted.”
“He won’t think about it for more than a few minutes. It was so very long ago. And he’s been through so much since. He was just being sensitive. Men’s pride, you know, my dear.”
“I know. But I think I’ll slip out nonetheless. He doesn’t need to see me again.” Jules stood, kissed Jocelyn on the cheek, and quietly edged her way to the door, through the crowds. Jocelyn watched her go, a thoughtful expression on her face.
Michael Hungerford was standing by himself in a corner, his eyes following Jules as she passed through the guests and into the next room. When she disappeared from view, he reached out, grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray, and drank it down in one go. It might have been a long time, but he couldn’t forget.
thirty-three
Clive Morris stood in the foyer of the LWT Building, watching the celebrities arrive for the evening’s festivities. Awards shows had become dull, unexciting occasions in recent years since the organizers of the various events had begun to postpone dinner—and drinks—until after the awards were all handed out. Sober celebrities made for polite, repetitive, and very boring evenings. The one exception was the Comedy Awards. There, the wine flowed freely from the moment everyone sat at their table. And there was always some kind of scene. Heckling nominees, a hurt presenter, even a fight on-screen one year. The PRs were not in charge for a change…and the journalists loved it.
Clive was particularly interested because of Lily. Her first Comedy Awards, her first nominations, she’d be bound to be nervous, and with any luck she’d get drunk, behave badly, make a fool of herself. The fates couldn’t be so unkind as to deny him everything in life he wanted.
He looked at his watch. She was leaving it a bit late. Most of the usual suspects were already inside, the executives all correct in black tie, the stars ranging from a glittery Cilla to a T-shirted Chris Evans. Just a few stragglers left now. Ah, there was Lily. Tall, blond, and chic in a skintight black designer dress. And her escort. Now, he was something new. Since her recent rise to fame, Lily had often been escorted to industry events by one of her colleagues—those two producers of hers, that Raymond, the production manager—but Clive had never seen this one before. Tall, broad, and weathered, he didn’t look as if he spent his life in neon-lit TV studios. It wasn’t like Lily to bring a boyfriend to a show—as far as Clive could discover, few of them lasted long enough—but this one seemed to be just that. The body language was right—Lily was holding his arm, he was leaning over her, protectively or possessively or both.
Hey, maybe she was in love? Lilibet, in love? Clive rubbed his inner hands together in glee. What fun he could have with that. Stolen pictures of them together—he knew just the man—preferably with clothes missing; deep background on the hunk—please may he turn out to be something sensational like a bigamist or a con man; humiliation for Lilibet. Okay, maybe that was a little far-fetched, her date was probably a grip she knew who liked sunbeds, but a man could dream, couldn’t he?
LILY CAME offstage, clutching her award—a sort of plastic scrolly thing with a joker inside—and couldn’t stop herself giving a little skip of joy. Two nominations. Two awards. She found it all hard to believe. Three years ago, she’d been another anonymous writer, fighting to sell sketches to producers. Two years ago, she’d been doing the rounds of the production companies with her sitcom. A year ago, she’d been thrust into the limelight. And for some reason had been taken to the public’s heart. Now here she was, best comedy actress and the writer of the comedy of the year. She knew she was supposed to be cool about it, not to show how excited she was, but that was impossible. She’d just been given the greatest compliment of her life. People thought she was funny.
An improbably tall woman draped in a Grecian-style costume escorted Lily into the press room. Massed rows of photographers flashed at her as she stood, holding her joker, smiling and smiling and smiling. After what seemed like a year, when her jaws ached with the pressure of constant beaming, the statuesque woman led her on to face the press proper.
Lily looked out at a host of semifamiliar faces. Men and women she had talked to off and on over the last months. Some she liked, most she felt indifferent to…and then there was Clive. Lily noticed his smirking grin somewhere toward the back and prepared herself for a few snide, unpleasant questions. He’d be bound to have something prepared. He’d probably been working on it all week just on the off chance that she might win.
“How do you feel, Lily?” a voice called out. She identified Peter Bourne. The Star. She settled down to the business of answering questions.
“What did Steve Martin say?” the man from the Mirror asked. The famous American comedian had presented her with the award.
“Were you surprised?” the Express asked.
“Which award means more?” from the Mail, on Sunday.
“Is it true you’ve signed to make a movie with Hugh Grant?”
“Are you making more episodes of We Can Work It Out?”
“Who’s that hunk you came with?” Clive waited until the end of the session, when the questions had slowed down almost to a stop, then jumped in.
So that was the direction he was going to go in. He must have thrown away his ready-prepared attack after seeing her with Sean. “He’s a friend,” she said. “Okay, guys, if we’ve fi
nished—”
“Where’d you meet him?”
Lily gritted her teeth. No point in refusing to answer, it would only make Clive worse. And tip him off that there might be a story. “At a wedding.”
“And are you in love?”
Some of the other journalists roused at the mention of love. “Yeah, Lily, is it wedding bells for the two of you?”
“When’s the happy day?”
“Where’s the honeymoon?”
Lily laughed. “Only you guys could get from friendship to marriage in three short steps. Don’t tell him, will you?” And with that, she swept out. The press pack, reassured that they weren’t missing a story, settled down to wait for the next lucky award winner.
Clive was disappointed. Lily had turned out to be a good actress, true, and could still be hiding something, but the easy way she dealt with his and others’ questions didn’t suggest that it was anything worth his pursuing. She was probably having sex with her escort—knowing her, he’d say it was almost certain she was—but he wasn’t interested in another story about an occasional lover. Lily wouldn’t care; she’d just laugh and move on. She was unattached, and chances were the hunk was also; he’d have to be extraordinarily stupid to take a well-known woman out to a televised awards show if he were married or engaged. Or a con man. And Lily didn’t usually go for stupid.
No, Clive was after a bigger story than a short-term fling between two consenting adults, regardless of background. Let the other papers worry about Lily’s latest beau if they cared; he wasn’t interested. He wanted something much more spectacular. Something for the front pages. Something that would linger in people’s minds, tarnish Lily’s glittering career, and make her want to hide from the shame of it all.
LILY WALKED away from the press room feeling sure that she had convinced the pack that Sean was just another celebrity escort.
Apart from Clive. She couldn’t help feeling a touch worried about Clive. If he got hold of the story about her and the girls and Sean, it’d be spread over the front page of his newspaper with the truth twisted to make the sharing scheme appear the worst, most heinous sin in the world rather than a good-natured deal between three old friends.
