by Karen Clarke
‘Ooh, I’ve got some good stuff,’ I said, pleased I’d bought the vintage champagne after all, my apathy lifting at the thought of us settling in front of the telly with the Christmas lights twinkling in the corner. It would be like going back in time, to when I’d shared a house with two trainee teachers and a drummer, only I wouldn’t be trying to keep the peace, or the only one who thought to lock up the house before going to bed.
Perhaps I could go and fetch some logs and get the fire burning again.
But Ollie was shaking his head before I could cross to the cupboard and get some glasses out.
‘No offence, lovely Lily, but I fancy a change of scenery.’
My insides sagged. It was clear he’d set his mind on going out and wasn’t going to be swayed. ‘Craig can bring his camera, get a bit of local colour,’ he added, as if that might swing things in his favour – as though Craig could only be happy filming Ollie.
Craig nodded with a faint air of resignation. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘But no filming. Let’s just have a drink.’
‘Oh.’ For a moment Ollie looked perplexed and I thought he was going to argue, but then he said, ‘OK, well I’ll go and get my glad rags on.’ He backed out of the kitchen, swinging his hips and winding his arms above his head, giving me a fierce look from under lowered eyebrows.
I couldn’t help laughing again. ‘I’d better see if there’s somewhere nearby, if he wants to go dancing,’ I said when he’d gone upstairs. I reached for my phone and did a search. ‘It’s blues night at the Shipley Conservative Club or there’s a DJ playing at Jonny’s Bar, but the place has got terrible reviews. “Music too loud and grumpy bar staff. There was a number two on the floor in the ladies.”’ I winced. ‘“A bouncer slapped my mum.” Wow. I can’t imagine Ollie in there, can you?’ I said. ‘We might have to drive to Poole.’
Craig looked at me sideways. ‘I thought you were tired.’
‘I am,’ I said, ‘but—’
‘But nothing.’ He wrapped some cling film over a plate of leftover sandwiches and slid it into the fridge. ‘If you’re tired, you don’t have to come.’
‘But he’s my guest.’
‘That doesn’t mean you have to run around after him.’
‘I’m not, I just…’
‘Want to please him?’
‘You make me sound like a nineteen-fifties housewife.’
‘It’s not good for him to get what he wants all the time.’
‘Now you’re making him sound like a spoilt little boy.’
‘He is, in some ways.’
‘Why are you going, then?’
‘Because…’ Craig’s shoulders dropped. ‘Force of habit, I suppose.’ He fiddled with his watchstrap. ‘We go back a long way and I… I feel responsible for him.’
‘Because of the show?’
‘I guess, and because his family have been good to me.’
‘Well, maybe it doesn’t do him any good, you always being there for him,’ I said, stung by Craig’s assessment of me as a sappy people-pleaser. ‘Maybe he needs to stand on his own two feet, find out what he really wants, without you always being there to pick him up and dust him down.’ I’d got my teacher-head on and couldn’t seem to stop. ‘Perhaps if you hadn’t agreed to film this one-off show he’d have brought someone else – someone who wouldn’t pander to him so much.’
‘Like you were doing this morning?’
Just when I’d been beginning to like Craig (a bit) he went and ruined it. ‘I wasn’t pandering, it was a moment of—’
‘Insanity?’
I glared. ‘I told you, I didn’t respond,’ I said, a quaver in my voice. ‘Maybe you’re just seeing what you want to see.’
‘I didn’t want to see that,’ he shot back. ‘I’ve seen it all before anyway.’
‘Bully for you.’ I swiped some crumbs off the worktop. ‘I’m sorry to be a disappointment.’
He briefly closed his eyes. ‘Look, all I was trying to say is, you don’t owe him anything.’
‘I know that. I have free will. I’m not an imbecile.’
He gave a humourless laugh, as if he doubted it. ‘I hope you’re not actually hoping to become his girlfriend, because I can promise you that won’t happen.’
‘Psychic, are you?’
‘No. I just know him very well.’
‘Sounds like you’re secretly in love with him.’ It was the most childish thing I’d ever said, and I could hardly blame him for not responding. ‘Anyway, maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do.’
‘You’ve known him for five minutes.’
‘An outsider can be more objective.’
‘Was kissing him objective?’
‘So now we’re back to that.’ I shook my head. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.’ Maddeningly, he didn’t comment. ‘Have you ever been in love, Craig?’
‘Oh, so now you’re in love with Ollie?’
‘No, of course not, I—’
‘Good, because he’s in love with Tattie,’ he said wearily, as if he’d tired of the subject. ‘He’ll be trying to make her jealous.’
‘How, when she’s goodness knows where, doing whatever she’s doing?’ I said, aware that wasn’t the argument I should be having, and that he hadn’t answered my question about being in love. ‘Unless he told her about it… but even so, nothing actually happened between us—’
‘He spoke to her?’ Craig’s brow wrinkled.
‘She called him while you were out.’
‘Shit,’ he muttered, rubbing a hand round his jaw. ‘How did he seem, afterwards?’
‘I don’t know, he didn’t mention it,’ I said. ‘He fell asleep.’
Before I could say anything else, Ollie reappeared, hair brushed back and shiny, wearing the skinny trousers and leather coat he’d discarded earlier. ‘Ready?’ He scanned my appearance. ‘You’re coming like that?’
I looked at Craig out of the corner of my eye. His expression was benign, as if we’d been discussing the weather. ‘I’m not coming,’ I said. Even if I’d wanted to, there was no way I could go after everything Craig had said. ‘I think I’ll work on my novel for a bit and then turn in.’ Turn in? It was something my gran would have said.
‘Oh, Lilliput.’ Ollie pouted his bottom lip, but I had the sense he wasn’t too distressed. No doubt he was anticipating all the ladies he could charm. ‘I was relying on you to show us the Devon nightlife.’
‘Dorset,’ Craig and I said together. He caught my eye and I looked away.
‘Same thing,’ said Ollie. He slapped Craig’s shoulder, seeming oblivious to any tension in the air. ‘Put your decent trousers on and lead the way, my man.’
‘They’re in the car.’ With a barely detectable sigh, Craig rooted in his pocket for his keys. ‘Shall I bring some logs in?’ he said to me.
‘No, thanks.’ My voice was stiff. ‘I can manage.’
‘Do you have a spare key?’
‘I’ll leave the door on the latch. Just remember to drop it when you come in.’
‘We’ll be as quiet as mice,’ said Ollie, compounding the feeling that I’d morphed into my grandmother by dropping a kiss on my cheek and squeezing my shoulder. ‘Ciao, lovely Lily.’
Once they’d gone, I slumped against the sink and released a sigh.
The air seemed to settle as I ate a couple of leftover sandwiches and one of Doris’s sausage rolls. They were delicious.
Determined not to dwell on my conversation with Craig, I opened the wine and poured myself a glass, then drew the curtains in the living room and set the tree lights to static. All that flashing was giving me a headache. The Muppets had finished and Home Alone was starting as I slipped outside to fetch some logs from the shed.
The night was cold and still and a full moon had risen high in the sky. Along the street, Christmas lights flashed and twinkled and a few sightseers wandered past, exclaiming at the displays. In the distance, I could hear the pure voices of some car
ol-singers throwing their hearts into ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’, and felt both Christmassy and sad. It had been Dad’s favourite carol. Whenever he’d had a few drinks on Christmas Day he would launch into song, and my grandparents would join in, while Chris and I squirmed with embarrassment and Mum went gooey-eyed.
As I came out of the shed, laden with logs, I noticed a female figure in the upstairs window of the Lamberts’, silhouetted by a soft, pink light in the room behind her. It didn’t look like Sheelagh, unless her hair had grown in the last few hours. It was long, tumbling around her shoulders, and as she reached up to close the curtains I saw she was wearing a silky, purple camisole.
Barry’s lover! He must have invited her over while Sheelagh was at her sister’s.
I watched the shadow move away, swishing her hair back, and told myself it was none of my business. Or Doris’s, for that matter.
I felt sorry for Sheelagh, though. Hopefully, she wouldn’t come home early and catch them in the act. The thought of Barry in bed with a woman – any woman – wasn’t exactly pleasant, and I hurried inside and busied myself getting the fire going.
Once it was blazing, I ran upstairs and brought down the bag containing the few Christmas gifts I’d bought before leaving London, along with some sparkly wrapping paper, sticky tape and scissors. It would be nice to pop some presents under the tree, even if there weren’t many. There was a book about cocktail making for Chris (I’d guessed it was only a matter of time before he was serving them at his café); a scarf for Mum, patterned with shuttlecocks – she and Dad used to play badminton; and a pair of silver sea-horse earrings for Erin, because I knew she’d like them.
Previously, I’d have bought something for the Secret Santa lucky dip at school, competing with my colleagues to see who could buy the silliest gift for less than ten pounds. Last year, I’d received a pair of wind-up racing grannies, which had gone down a storm, but I’d left them in my desk drawer when I resigned.
Turning my mind away from the past, as I wrapped the presents, I wondered whether it would look bad if there wasn’t a gift for Ollie and Craig beneath the tree. I ended up shoving the parcels back in the bag when I’d finished, and then into my wardrobe.
I brought my laptop downstairs and plumped myself on the sofa with my wine, wondering where Ollie and Craig had ended up. Trying not to think of them surrounded by giggling, wide-eyed girls, I opened my ‘novel’ document and swiftly typed: Jessica entered the nightclub and felt her body throb to the music. No one would know there was a body in the trunk of her car.
I sipped some more wine, feeling my shoulders relax. I thought about calling Mum, to ask why she kept ringing Doris, but remembered she’d be onstage.
‘Break a leg’,
I texted her.
‘Not literally xx’
I jumped when my phone rang in my hand.
‘Hi, Erin.’
‘You bloody snogged him!’
‘What?’ I sat up, my laptop sliding to the floor. ‘How did you know? And I didn’t!’
‘Look online,’ she said. ‘You’re famous.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
I wasn’t famous. But there was a photo of Ollie and me on The Shipley Examiner’s website; the one where he’d dropped his lips to mine.
The headline read PLAYER COMES OUT TO PLAY and I skimmed the words underneath:
Former Players’s bad boy, Ollie Matheson, is in Shipley to turn on the Christmas tree lights on 13th December, and to judge the Maple Hill lights display. Ollie – who was booted off Players last season – arrived early to immerse himself in local life with local resident, Lindsay Anderson… [I was glad Chris Weatherby had got my name wrong, but shouldn’t he have checked his facts?] …who invited Matheson to stay at her home and is showing him the sights. One sight he’s clearly enjoying is Lindsay herself, who seems to have won his heart. [More fake news.] So, folks, be at the square or be square [!] this Friday for festive fun and frolics, and to meet Players’s most infamous player.
I studied the image again. ‘Is my backside really that wide?’
‘That’s all you’ve got to say?’ Erin’s voice rose. ‘You’re kissing him!’
‘He was kissing me, actually, and the photo’s misleading,’ I said. ‘It was just a friendly peck.’
My upturned face was barely visible, but in my parka and ‘boyfriend’ jeans (they were going in the bin) I looked to be a decade older than Ollie and punching above my weight. My hair stuck out at one side and his eyes were fixed elsewhere, as if checking the reaction of onlookers.
‘Why were you looking on their website?’ I said, going hot as I recalled the other almost-kiss that Erin knew nothing about.
‘I was checking to see if his visit had been reported.’ Her voice sounded disjointed, as if she was pacing around. ‘It would be bad for his ego if no one turned up to watch him switch on the lights.’
‘Turning the lights on is a yearly event,’ I pointed out. ‘Celebrity or no celebrity, people will be there.’
‘I thought his visit was supposed to be low-key,’ Erin persisted. ‘What’s he doing kissing you in front of a crowd?’
Ollie’s stay had hardly been low-key so far. I wondered whether to mention the visit he’d organised from fans, and that he’d insulted my neighbours, and that Tattie had called him, but Erin would probably give him a roasting, and then he’d be annoyed that I’d told her. He might even decide to leave and, while I suspected my neighbours wouldn’t exactly be heartbroken, I was still hoping to turn things around.
‘It was a spur of the moment thing, after a few people recognised him in the high street,’ I said. ‘And then that reporter turned up.’
‘Handy,’ said Erin. ‘There was supposed to be a paragraph about his visit, and a mention on the local news, not the equivalent of a spread in heat magazine.’
‘Someone must have tipped off the paper.’ Ollie, probably.
‘They’re implying you’re his new girlfriend.’ Erin was working herself up again. ‘I thought you said you weren’t going along with that bullshit.’
‘I’m not.’ I rubbed my hairline, feeling another headache brewing, my gaze dropping to the Comments section.
What a slut, letting him stay at her house.
Wonder what else he’s turning on??
Waste of tax-payers money, him switching the lights on.
I was tempted to reply that Ollie was doing it for nothing – apart from exposure – but knew engaging with trolls was a bad idea.
I’d turn on the lights for nothing and give her one.
Ollie Matheson’s a posh twat.
Bet he’s got a tiny willy.
She’s obviously a gold-digger. Ollie, you can have me!!
Shaken, I slammed my laptop shut.
‘Lily!’
I realised Erin had asked me something. ‘I said, why the fuck did you let him kiss you?’
‘He took me by surprise.’
‘He had his arm around you, for god’s sake.’
‘It’s just a stupid picture.’ I was starting to feel hounded. ‘No one will care in a week. Isn’t that what you say when one of your stars gets caught in a compromising situation?’
‘Don’t use my words against me.’ Erin sounded equally rattled. ‘You’d better put him on.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I’d like to speak to him.’
‘He’s not here.’
‘What?’
‘He wanted to go dancing.’ Put baldly, it sounded ridiculous. ‘I don’t know where.’
‘And you let him go?’ she snapped.
‘I could hardly stop him,’ I snapped back. ‘Craig’s gone, too.’
‘Footage of him smooching doe-eyed fans in a dingy nightclub is hardly going to endear him to the public. Jesus!’
‘Not all nightclubs outside London are dingy.’
‘How do you know, have you been to any?’
‘Have you?’
She hesitated. ‘No.’
&
nbsp; ‘Well, then. And Craig hasn’t taken his camera.’
‘Oh.’ Her annoyance seemed to subside. ‘Look, I just… I thought he was supposed to be lying low, living like an ordinary person.’ She emphasised ordinary. ‘Why didn’t you talk him out of going?’
‘For heck’s sake, Erin, make your mind up. First, I shouldn’t get too close, now I’m supposed to be controlling his every move.’ I felt on the verge of tears. ‘You’re starting to sound like you care a bit too much.’
She sucked in a breath, as if I’d hit a nerve. ‘I want his career to get back on track, but not at your expense,’ she said, uncertainly. Erin never sounded uncertain. Even when The Actor had left her, she was unequivocal in her summing up that he was a bastard who didn’t deserve her.
‘That’s not what you were going to say.’ I waited. ‘What’s going on?’ I felt the weight of her silence. ‘Erin?’
In a rush she said, ‘I kissed him too, OK? A couple of times, ages ago, before he started seeing Tattie Granger. It was stupid and I regret it, but I can handle myself and I’m not sure you… I’m worried you’ll start thinking you might have a future with him.’
My mouth was hanging open. ‘You kissed Ollie Matheson?’
‘I know,’ she wailed. ‘I still can’t believe it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Why do you think? I was embarrassed,’ she said. ‘When he first called the agency, looking for representation, I had no idea that when I met him he’d be so…’
‘Good-looking?’
‘Exactly!’
‘Oh my god, Erin!’ I swallowed some wine, trying to get my head round it. ‘You were Ollied, too!’
She groaned. ‘Don’t remind me.’
