The Valentine's Card

by Juliet Ashton

  Orla’s feet walked her to the Piccadilly line, not the Hammersmith & City line, of their own accord. Soho’s tangle of streets was confounding and she was on the verge of giving up when she finally found the address, walked up the narrow stairs to a bright room above a restaurant and introduced herself to the receptionist as ‘a friend’.

  ‘Orla!’ Reece’s office was handsome, its panelled walls almost obscured by movie posters, theatrical playbills and a framed gallery of his clients. He stood up behind his desk, a wide blond wood trestle almost invisible beneath a landslide of paper: Orla guessed he knew the whereabouts of every document on it to the nearest centimetre. ‘Darling, how nice!’

  ‘You knew.’ Orla stood on the patterned rug in a superhero stance, feet apart and hands on hips.

  ‘About?’ Reece looked quizzical. By his expression he was holding out for this to be a prank.

  ‘About Sim and his affair.’

  A brief war raged on Reece’s face before he jettisoned the look of incomprehension. Resigned, sad even, he moved to a chesterfield the colour of olives and dropped heavily on to it. ‘Sit with me, darling. Tell me what you’ve heard.’

  ‘What I’ve read.’ Her face was hot, but Orla’s words came out coolly. ‘I didn’t burn the valentine.’ She clocked Reece’s surprise and moved on before he could take her to task. ‘It’s all there in Sim’s own words. And you knew and you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Whoa, Orla. Don’t go scattering accusations. Sit down.’ Reece patted the seat beside him. ‘Come on.’

  Orla knew what it was like to sit by Reece, how safe it felt beside such a fierce watchdog, but she didn’t sit down.

  ‘He left me, Reece! He walked out on me for her!’ She gestured at a framed glossy photograph of Anthea.

  ‘Ant?’ Reece rolled his eyes. ‘Good God, is this about Ant? You think he was—’

  ‘I know he was!’ Orla began to pace. If this was how stroppy, volatile people behaved she could see the attraction. She felt powerful, uninhibited. ‘And don’t feign innocence, Reece. You knew everything about Sim. And there was me thinking your advice to burn the card was for my benefit! You covered up for him, like you do for all the lousy adulterers on your walls!’

  That term was unfashionable, but it was true. She wondered if Reece could see through the steam of self-righteousness to the soft pulpy hurt beneath. Apparently he could. He patted the seat beside him again. ‘Come on. It’s me, Orla. Let’s talk.’

  After the merest hesitation she sat. ‘Don’t bullshit me, Reece. You knew.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Reece. ‘I did.’

  ‘Bastard!’

  ‘I deserve that.’ Reece dipped his head. His ginger crop was freshly shorn; short needles of hair littered his collar. ‘Sim was doing a lot of stuff he was ashamed of. Stuff he knew you wouldn’t tolerate.’

  Tiring of her role as conscience of the world, Orla muttered, ‘You make me sound like a headmistress, not a girlfriend.’

  Reece put out his palms, too weary to debate it. ‘He needed your good opinion just to get out of bed in the mornings. Without you, he was a kid let loose in a shitty candy store. The boozing was chronic.’ Reece winced at some memory. ‘I did my best to keep him away from drugs, but the streets of London are paved with coke these days.’

  ‘We could have got through that.’ Drinking, snorting – such minor infractions in the shadow of Sim’s unfaithfulness. ‘How could you let me cart that card around? And how could you introduce me to Anthea? That was low. You made a fool of me.’

  ‘Listen.’ Reece was grave. ‘Sim would have come back to you. I know it in here.’ He struck his chest. ‘I lied to protect you, not him. I don’t think anything went on with Ant, not really.’

  ‘Real enough for him to leave me. He fooled us both, it would seem.’

  Orla spotted a familiar face on the opposite wall and got up to study a black and white Sim, grinning winningly, holding a clapperboard with The Courtesan written on it.

  ‘That job was the end of us,’ she murmured, admitting at last that she hated it, that her fingers had tingled with cave-woman apprehension of danger from the moment the mammoth script had arrived. ‘Oh, and look who’s in the next photo along.’ Orla tapped the framed colour shot. ‘Cosy.’

  ‘That’s the latest shot of Ant. Her and the director the day she got the Macbeth gig. She likes that photo, thinks she looks young. She’d just had her latest shot of Restylane.’

  ‘It’s too late to slag her off like that,’ said Orla. She folded her arms, stared at the image. Ant was smiling widely, leaning in to the portly director as if she’d been waiting her whole life just for this moment. ‘Actors are dangerous,’ she murmured. A detail caught her eye. She leaned in, looked closer.

  ‘Come away. This is unhealthy.’

  ‘Reece, I want an apology from her. I need her to be straight with me.’ She was tired of the doublethink of these sophisticated, scuzzy people. ‘It’s time for some honesty.’

  With obvious reluctance, Reece said ‘Have you been completely honest with yourself?’

  The question twisted tighter a knot already snarling Orla’s gut. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You truly had no inkling at all? No intuition that Sim was flailing? He needed you, Orla.’ Reece looked away, as if he’d seen something on her face he couldn’t bear. ‘Sorry. You said you wanted honesty.’

  Winded, Orla, whispered, ‘Of course I knew. After New Year only a fool could pretend, but I must be a fool, Reece, because I managed to carry on as if nothing had happened. I chose to believe it would all come right, like it always did for us. I thought we were impregnable. That we’d bend but never break.

  ‘So, clever old you for sussing me out when I’ve been hiding behind my own back all this time. I’m not innocent in all of this.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’ Reece rose and put an arm around Orla, then the other when she didn’t repulse him. ‘When Orla was just a name, a girl in his anecdotes, it made sense to help Sim keep his hell-raising from you. But now that I know you – and love you – it’s tacky and I regret it.’ He let Orla lean in to him: her anger had left the building. ‘Promise me though, darling. One thing. Don’t approach Anthea.’

  Orla’s head came up. Two hands on Reece’s chest pushed him firmly away. ‘Protecting your clients again?’

  Reece went to his desk and perched on the corner, explaining with a sigh, ‘It’s my job. And my duty. We have no proof. We don’t really know what happened.’

  ‘I rather think I do.’

  ‘There’s a vast list of suspects to choose from, Orla. Makeup girls, producers, runners, assistant directors, some girl at some party.’

  ‘No. Sim wouldn’t leave me for a girl at a party. I could tell from the card that this wasn’t just anybody, it was a somebody.’ She harrumphed mirthlessly. ‘A somebody who could help his career if I know Sim.’

  ‘No need to demonise him. Let’s just say we don’t know who it was and leave it at that. No point in dwelling on it.’

  ‘No point?’ Orla was dumbfounded. ‘No point in knowing who the love of my life left me for?’ She stood up, her feet suddenly sore in the ankle boots that had always pinched, her jacket dusty and cheap in this moneyed room. ‘I’ve been dumped from beyond the grave,’ she said shrilly. ‘I’m one of a kind. I’m unique. A dead man has jilted me. Of course I need to know who it was for. And I do know.’ She lowered her chin, glowered at Reece. ‘And you know too. At least give me that, Reece. Please.’

  Sucking his cheeks, Reece didn’t answer for a long moment. He sat forward, hands entwined between his open legs, head hanging. ‘Orla, you can’t approach Ant. Or accuse her. Think of the scandal this could create.’

  Orla stayed silent (she was, in fact, dumb with disbelief at this new slant). He continued.

  ‘They’re co-stars in a smash hit. He’s a hugely romantic figure to thousands of fans. Have you seen the Facebook pages devoted to him? Full of poems and prayers and fan art.’ Reece l
ooked abashed at Orla’s stony face. ‘No, no, of course you haven’t. Sorry. As far as anybody’s concerned, Ant is just his costar, a dear friend, somebody who encouraged a younger rising talent. There’ll be a sequel to Courtesan, and Ant’ll be in it. If you were to kick up a stink about this, tell anybody, it would be excellent tabloid fodder. Notoriety sells these days, but not this sort. Can you imagine? I stole sexy younger man from lovely girlfriend and then he dropped dead. The Beeb would go mental.’

  ‘Why am I supposed to care?’

  ‘You must care about Sim’s legacy.’

  ‘Not as much as you care about Anthea’s fee.’ Ugly, but inescapable.

  ‘I’m her agent. Every aspect of Anthea’s life is my responsibility.’ Reece hesitated as if weighing up whether or not to go on. ‘Look, Orla, truth is, Ant’s a little bit … fragile.’

  ‘Fragile! The old cow’s made of cast iron. She strode in, saw my boyfriend, tucked him under her arm and strode off.’

  ‘Her life hasn’t been easy. Ant’s always looked after herself, always been on her own.’

  ‘What about the lovers? Including ones already spoken for?’

  ‘All part of it. She chases unattainable men.’

  ‘She feckin’ attained mine.’

  ‘If this is all true – and it’s a big if – imagine how Ant must feel, knowing Sim died leaving you in the dark. As it is, she drinks too much, employs an astrologer, a numerologist, a nutritionist, and a different therapist for every day of the week. She’s troubled, Orla, and it could tip her over the edge if you approach her. Why prolong the pain for both of you?’ Reece hesitated. ‘In some ways, surely, the revelation makes it a little easier to move on?’

  ‘Easier?’ Perhaps words had alternative meanings she was ignorant of. ‘I need closure, to use an irritating phrase. I want somebody to say they’re sorry. To tell me I’m right. And I don’t appreciate you making me responsible for Anthea’s mental health. I owe her nothing.’

  ‘That’s true, but don’t expect closure or an apology from Ant. Even if she is the other woman. There’s no happy ending here, just the usual ugly aftermath of an affair.’ Reece sprang up, straightened his shoulders. ‘Believe me, I know. Showbiz isn’t famed for its ability to keep its cock in its pants.’

  ‘I thought the valentine would be the end of it. A soft-focus ending.’ Orla slumped. ‘Instead it’s another sordid beginning.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be. I mean, what about Marek?’

  ‘Dracula?’ asked Orla sardonically. ‘Oh. Right. After being a figure of fun at your party, suddenly he’s the answer.’

  ‘I was rude. I’ve been in the business too long and I get jumpy around civilians. He seemed charming. And very tasty.’

  ‘Tasty.’ Orla laughed at the word, and how it failed to do justice to Marek. ‘He is that. He’s quite special, I think.’ She could say so now. ‘But,’ she swerved back on course. It was unsettling to linger on Marek. ‘He’s not the point.’

  ‘No, Fairy, you are.’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’ Orla was Miss Cassidy suddenly, admonishing a seven-year-old caught drawing boobies in his maths book. ‘Only Sim called me that and if he was here I wouldn’t let him.’

  ‘Dinner. That’s what we need.’ As Orla huffed and puffed her refusal, Reece picked up the phone on his desk, pressed a button and said ‘Ange, you can use my ticket to the National tonight if you like, and get the Ivy to squeeze me and a guest in at,’ he looked at his watch, ‘in about an hour. Talk to Fernando. He’ll sort me out.’ Replacing the receiver, he spoke over Orla. ‘No arguments. I want to keep you near me for a while. I feel so bad in so many different ways about what happened. I want to repair us. That’s my job, yes, but not with you. This is personal. So please, shut up and let me take you to the Ivy.’

  ‘I’ve never been less in the mood for a swanky restaurant. Things are OK between us. Let’s have a coffee, or something, soon.’

  Orla almost felt sorry for Reece. He lived in a world of shifting reality, where everybody pretended to be something else and all that mattered was how things looked. Orla’s insistence on tearing away the mask had unsettled him.

  ‘Has this helped?’ Reece’s face was so pained it verged on the comical.

  ‘It has.’

  She’d learned far more in this room than Reece could imagine.

  Orla had proof.

  ‘Orla? It’s Ma. Can you talk?’

  ‘Ma, what you and Da had was real, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Eh? Real? What do you mean, what we had?’

  ‘You loved each other?’

  ‘God bless us and save us, Orla, what kind of a question is that? Didn’t I live with the man and feed him and wash his clothes and put up with that feckin’ pipe for thirty-five years?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry. Ignore me.’

  ‘I haven’t seen a single Cassidy this blessed day. You have your own lives, I know. Can’t be hanging round the neck of a has-been like your owld ma.’

  ‘You’re surrounded by family so much they get on your nerves. You almost killed us all last Christmas lunch.’

  ‘See, Orla, that’s what I miss. Your sensitivity. You noticed I was upset.’

  ‘You were screaming and revving the electric knife at us, Ma.’

  ‘Have you watched any of Sim’s thing at all? It’s getting very exciting. Too rude, though, Lord have mercy on us. I can take a bosom now and then – I’m very with it, as you know – but men’s arses is a step too far.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘I did love your Da, pet, if that’s what you meant. And he loved me.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And all of youse. God, that man loved youse lot.’

  ‘Thanks, Ma.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘She’s late again.’

  ‘Traffic’s always bad on a Saturday.’

  ‘Bogna gets the tube.’

  ‘Hmm. Well. Same difference.’

  The shop helped Orla to focus. Perhaps it was the books, standing around her in their hundreds, all testament to the power of organised thought. Perhaps it was the calm of a customer-less oasis in the midst of pound stores and betting shops. At work she hadn’t had time to examine the nugget Reece had unwittingly handed her, but here, in the dusty silence, broken only by Maude’s incessant, distracted monologue, Orla could turn it over in her hands, and hopefully nurture her grim excitement until it spawned a plan.

  Since Sim’s death, her mind had returned to the valentine whenever it was at rest, like a silver ball rolling down the grooves of a pinball table. Now, with the valentine in a hotel bin, the silver ball rolled down to rest against the journal.

  Thinking about the journal was, Orla knew, a respite from thinking about what Sim had done to her. The role of victim didn’t come easily to her, and Orla smarted and struggled against its tight confines. She wanted to do something, not sit bemoaning her lot, mourning all over again the loss of a love. There had been plenty of sitting and bemoaning in the past months, and now she pounced on the journal as a solid objective.

  The journal would explain, explicitly and unselfconsciously, everything she needed to know. It would be honest, it would name names; it would detail Sim’s estrangement from her in chronological order. It was the key to peace of mind. Her desire for it bypassed want for pure need.

  And now she knew where to find it.

  Orla had not been studying Anthea Blake’s eerily smooth forehead in the photograph hanging in Reece’s office. She’d been transfixed by the leather-bound book in Anthea’s arms.

  Maude turned at the ding-a-ling of the bell, a broad polite smile on her weathered, delicate face that became secretive when she recognised the first customer of the day. ‘Why, George,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning, Maude.’ George tipped his hat and Orla wanted to cheer. Why didn’t men tip their hats any more? It was so civilised, and such a compliment. She edged far enough away to give Maude and George privacy,
but close enough to listen in.

  ‘Any luck with finding that book for me?’ asked George, rocking back and forth on shabby, polished shoes.

  ‘Ancient Rome by S. J. Virtue? I’m afraid not.’ Maude sighed prettily. ‘It’s awfully rare. Shall I keep trying?’

  ‘Oh, do, please. I’ll have a little browse, if I may?’

  ‘Browse to your heart’s content.’ Maude turned away, humming, with a quelling look for Orla’s thumbs up from children’s fiction.

  Selecting an odd little book about Yorkshire, George fished out his wallet, handing over the exact money. ‘Thank you,’ he said, taking the candy-striped paper bag from Maude, on her plinth behind the till. ‘Has anybody ever told you,’ he said, ‘that you have a look of Katharine Hepburn about you?’

  ‘Never.’ Maude patted her flossy white bun, which she’d admitted to Orla she’d modelled on the actress’s.

  ‘She’s one of my favourites,’ said George, turning for the door. ‘Quite the beauty.’

  ‘Not one word,’ warned Maude as the shop door closed behind him. Her weathered face was putty pink.

  ‘But he’s crazy about you,’ said Orla, delighted that a sharp-elbowed world could still supply romance. ‘And he’s adorable.’

  ‘He’s a man, not a soft toy. Look, dear George is a perfectly nice chap, I’m sure, but I don’t have time for the lovey-dovey stuff.’

  No, thought Orla, you’re too busy keeping an eye on me. She saw how Maude watched her, wary like the keeper of a volcano scheduled to blow. The knock on the door last thing at night, the constant supply of eggy invalid food, the soft look of concern when Orla, as happened all too often, lost the thread of one of their meandering conversations.

  ‘You’d have plenty of time for lovey-dovey stuff if you stopped worrying about your lodger. I’m all right, you know. I have to be.’

  ‘I’m not worried. I care. There’s a difference.’

  Not a difference the Cassidys had ever discovered.