by Rosa Temple
‘Must dash. Not well,’ I said. Covering my mouth for effect, I shot out of my chair, grabbed my bag, and waved goodbye to Cressida and Coco. I angled myself close enough to the waitress with the tray so as not to alarm her but for her to be my human shield from Anya as the waitress walked through the bar.
I bowed my head, bent my knees, so I matched the waitress’s height, and hoped to God the tray wasn’t intended for Anya’s party. Luckily it wasn’t but the waitress was only able to shield me for half the length of the bar. She stopped in the middle, lowered the tray, and began placing side plates of food on the bar next to Keira Knightley.
I stood perfectly still in my crouched position, looking at Keira Knightley’s feet as the waitress walked away with the empty tray. Knightley’s party, some of whom were either seated or standing around the actress, were stunned to silence at my abrupt entry to their circle. Slowly my eyes swept up Keira’s frame pausing on her lap where I noticed a Shearman Bright handbag.
The silence bore into me until one of them shouted, ‘Hey, aren’t you Magenta Bright?’
I rose to my full height. I could feel all eyes on me and the distinct feeling that Anya had heard my name bellowed out and had turned her elegant neck in my direction. My face burned in embarrassment.
Keira’s informant went on to remind her that she was carrying one of my bags. Keira smiled at me. I smiled back and attempted to leave but Cressida and Coco had followed me out of the restaurant and were blocking my path.
‘Their shoes!’ cried Cressida clapping her hands together. ‘I buy their shoes – that’s what I do for my children.’
Over Cressida’s shoulder I could see Anya. She was staring hard in that icy way of hers, from me and then to Cressida and Coco.
‘I knew you’d grow up to be w-wonderful mothers,’ I stuttered. ‘But I really must go.’
My cover blown, I turned and backed out of the bar as discreetly as I could, well as discreetly as a person who was trying to edge away from two women in pink dresses in the middle of a bar. As I tiptoed backwards to the lift, Coco and Cressida were calling out and squealing, ‘Anya, Anya Stankovic! Look, it’s Magenta.’
The lift took for ever to arrive and when it did I slammed my hand on the ground floor button and closed my eyes, trying to magic the whole sorry evening away.
Next time, I’d go with the parachute idea.
Chapter 23
The Accident
It was just days until the flights out to the Caribbean. A week until my parents’ wedding. I was busy trying to leave things at the office such that I shouldn’t have to be bothered too much by any business matters arising. Riley had given me her “leave it with me” thumbs-up and everyone at the staff meeting confirmed they had it covered. I should just go and have a wonderful time.
Back home there were last-minute things to arrange. Our Vera Wang bridesmaid dresses had been delivered and I had managed to finish making Mother’s wedding dress without having to resort to buying one off the rail at the last moment. The dress fit like a dream and Mother was beside herself with pride at my accomplishment.
I still hadn’t spoken to Anya, and after the incident at the bar I didn’t think there was any way to recover from that.
‘Packing already?’ Anthony asked when he popped his head around the bedroom door.
It was the evening and Anthony had made dinner. I wanted to remain as chilled as possible because I’d discovered a further stress line on my brow and at least two grey hairs when I parted my hair to do an oil treatment. After telling my mother, father, and sisters that they needed to look fabulous for the photos so get as much sleep as possible, it’d turn out to be me who let the side down.
‘Well I don’t want any last-minute running around,’ I said to Anthony. ‘I’ve got a list, in fact I have several, and if I stick to them then everything will run smoothly.’
Anthony hovered by the door, tracing an invisible line with his thumb on the paintwork.
‘What is it?’ I asked him.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing. I’ll just leave you to it.’
He disappeared, trotting down the stairs back to the living room, and I could hear he’d put on the television.
I returned to the packing. Anthony and I hadn’t attempted another night out together since Cressida and Coco-gate, which, technically, was Anthony standing me up. The fact that we hadn’t tried to reschedule spoke volumes.
One thing was for sure: Anthony and I were still not as close as we had been when we first moved in together. The honeymoon period would have worn off eventually, I know, I just hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. But so much had happened in the time we’d been together it wasn’t surprising we’d drifted apart.
For one thing we weren’t working together any more – surely that would change the dynamic of a relationship. And then if you added the amount of work we’d both undertaken individually, you’d have to expect a few bumps along the way. Surely.
I wondered if Anthony and I were the same people we were when we first got together. I wondered if we should have dated for a while longer before deciding to move in together.
I shook the idea from my head because it hadn’t escaped my notice that I had been on the prickly side with Anthony ever since he’d muttered those hurtful words in his drunken stupor a little while back. I had wanted to have it out with him but never had the satisfaction. I just had to sit with it. I don’t think he even noticed me being cool with him over it. My being bitter and twisted had gone over his head and only turned out to be quite tiring. I’d given up on the woman scorned routine and, instead, gone back to trying to will us back to being a normal couple again. Sadly, it just wasn’t working. We just weren’t there yet.
The suitcase I was packing was at the foot of the bed. I closed it and went over to the mirror. I looked at my face again, checking to see if I’d grown another line in my forehead because I’d been worrying that I shouldn’t be worrying about me and Anthony. There it was, another deep line, just above the one I’d spotted a day ago. I scrunched my forehead upward to see if I could count the wrinkles. Anya would have told me not to screw up my forehead because I’d only make it worse. I needed to find a way to de-stress. But how?
It was obvious that waiting for the situation between me and Anthony to resolve itself on its own was stupid. I’d stress myself into a frenzy if I waited for that to happen. Maybe our relationship needed a kick-start. Anthony had tried by asking to take me out on a date and though it never quite came off, it was probably time I returned the gesture, show him I still cared.
Anthony’s exhibition had been re-established at Slater’s and was doing well. He was all set to travel to the Caribbean for the wedding, happy in the knowledge that his paintings were stirring up a lot of interest. He’d been energized by the elevation of his popularity and the new series of pieces he was working on.
I knew that the following day he was having to tear himself away from his studio and he’d be at Slater’s for a few hours; there was a small production company making a documentary about modern-day British artists and they had arranged an interview with Anthony. My plan: Turn up at the gallery, take in the paintings again, and then treat Anthony to a romantic lunch. If he didn’t have to rush back to the studio we could do lunch at a plush hotel and order room service. It was the perfect plan.
I checked my forehead again. That extra line was gone. I was sure of it. I stopped pulling faces at the mirror and got on with the packing.
The next morning I dressed in sexy underwear, making sure Anthony didn’t see me. I giggled at the idea of being so decadent at lunchtime when I should be hard at work. But there was nothing like an afternoon of sex to spark a flame under a waning romance.
‘Have a nice day,’ I trilled as I left Anthony puzzling over which shirt to wear to meet the media people later. ‘The grey one,’ I shouted from the downstairs hall. ‘It brings out your eyes.’
‘Th
ank you!’ he called from upstairs and off I went. Spring in my step and everything.
At the office I got tied up with calls and it was past one when I left Shearman Bright and called a jaunty farewell to Riley. I got to Slater Gallery and followed the signposts to Anthony’s exhibition.
On the upper level I spent a few moments taking in Anthony’s paintings. Each time I saw his finished work I was overwhelmed with pride by Anthony’s talent. Here was this ordinarily shy, quiet man who pushed his glasses up his nose every time he stopped to concentrate but whose artwork was wild, colourful, and full of expression. The way he expressed himself on canvas was the way he was in bed and I had really missed that man between my sheets.
I grinned to myself when I thought about our impromptu lunch date and the see-through black undies underneath my red, Boss sheath dress. Now to find Anthony.
In one corner I noticed a woman kneeling and packing away camera equipment and chatting to a tall man with a satchel over his shoulder. I wondered if they had anything to do with Anthony’s interview. I couldn’t see him around and hoped he hadn’t left before I could surprise him.
‘Oh, hi,’ I said to them. ‘You weren’t by any chance interviewing Anthony Shearman?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes we were,’ said the man with the satchel.
‘Has he left?’
The woman got to her feet. ‘He’s still here. I think he went to have lunch in the restaurant on the ground floor.’
I ran to the stairs, waving and calling thanks over my shoulder. I trotted all the way to the restaurant and was out of breath when I got there. If he was mid-mouthful I’d grab the baguette and whisk him away to The Piccadilly, which was a stone’s throw away from the Slater Gallery.
At the doorway to the restaurant I saw Anthony. He was in profile at a table on the far side. I waved and took a step but then stopped. I hadn’t noticed, at first, that Anthony wasn’t alone.
His hair, so long and carefree now, was tucked behind his ears. His cheeks were slightly flushed – he blushed so easily – and he was laughing aloud. I could hear the low chesty laugh from where I stood, pinned to the floor. A family of tourists had to push their way past me because I was blocking the exit. They had already said, “excuse me,” politely and repeatedly, but I hadn’t budged.
Anthony’s hand reached across the table and touched the arm of his lunch companion, who was laughing just as loudly as he. It was Inez. Anthony’s ex-fiancée and the woman he’d lived with for over five years in a cliff-side house in southern Italy.
Inez was tall, beautiful, sexy. She was intelligent, multilingual. Her hair was like a smooth blonde sheet touching her shoulders and her Armani dress revealed her sculpted upper arms. Her manner was elegant and effortless and I hated her guts.
I looked from her to Anthony. I could have stood there all afternoon and they wouldn’t have noticed me – they were that engrossed in conversation.
I turned to leave, almost walking into a woman who’d just entered the restaurant.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said but practically brushed her aside. She made a sound as if she was going to complain but I was already halfway to the exit of the gallery and pulling my phone out of my bag. My finger was all set to call Anya until I remembered we weren’t speaking.
‘Oh shit,’ I said aloud on the steps of the gallery. ‘This can’t be happening.’
But it had happened. I did just see Anthony having lunch with his ex. He’d told me, after they broke up, that they’d lost all contact. In fact, he wasn’t even sure whether she’d stayed in London. Well if she hadn’t she was back now and I wanted to know how long she’d been around and why Anthony hadn’t mentioned her.
I didn’t go back to the office as I’d told Riley I would. I walked around Piccadilly for a while, bumping and barging into people because I wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to what I was doing. I kept trying to convince myself that there must be a reasonable explanation for the two of them to be together. Maybe Inez had just flown back to London for a visit, spotted Anthony’s exhibition, and thought she’d pop in. Surely it was a coincidence she’d chosen the one day he would be there. Of course, he’d accept her offer for lunch. He was too bloody polite to say, “No, go away. I hate you and I’ve already eaten.” Damn him.
Just then there was a screech of brakes right in front of me and a car horn tooting so energetically it shook me back to my surroundings: a very busy London street with fast traffic, fast pedestrians, and a pedestrian light that said, Stop, when I’d started to cross. A black-cab driver with a bright red face and whose cab was millimetres from my feet hadn’t taken his hand off the car horn. Just to his right, inches from me, and collapsed on the ground between the taxi and the side of the road, was a cyclist. My mind did a quick assessment of the situation; the cyclist had ridden into the back of the taxi who’d had to brake at speed to avoid hitting me. The cyclist was at an odd angle on his back and wasn’t moving.
‘Shit,’ I said. I dropped to my knees next to the cyclist and found myself surrounded by gasping onlookers: those who had been waiting to cross the road, those who’d just crossed after wriggling their way through the halted traffic, and others leaning over the railings at the side of the road, filming the incident on their phones.
‘You dozy, bloody cow!’ the taxi driver was shouting from above me.
‘Shut up!’ I yelled back. ‘And call a bloody ambulance.’ I bent over the cyclist and tentatively put a hand on his chest. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I think so,’ he said, finally lifting his head.
‘Don’t try to get up,’ I said, holding his shoulders.
‘You were riding like a maniac,’ the taxi driver bent over to bellow at him, too. ‘And you …’ He shook a finger in my face. ‘It was a flipping green light. You’re supposed to wait on the pavement like everyone else.’
‘I-I’m sorry,’ I said, still with my hands on the cyclist.
He struggled up to his feet, despite my protests about a broken spine, and adjusted his helmet.
‘You shouldn’t get back on your bike,’ I told him as he went to pick it up.
‘I know,’ he said standing it up. ‘It’s bloody knackered. Not even my bike. The brakes were fucked.’
‘So why ride so fast?’ The taxi driver was still fuming.
A policeman in a yellow vest pushed his way through the crowd and positioned himself between me and the taxi driver, thumbs hooked in his side pockets.
‘All right, what’s happened?’
The bustling crowd, the crumpled cyclist, and the disgruntled taxi driver all fell quiet and looked at me. I blinked several times, opened my mouth, closed it, and took a deep breath. The cyclist stepped forward.
‘S’all right,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t fast enough on my brakes and went into the cabbie. I’m fine, officer.’ He turned to the cab driver. ‘Have you checked your cab? Is it all okay?’
The driver of the black cab walked around his vehicle, checking for damage. He shook his head.
‘No, nothing scratched or bumped.’
‘As he went in the back of you, you can claim, you know?’ the policeman said.
‘Nah, nah, you’re all right,’ the cab driver said, still glaring at me.
‘Well in that case,’ the policeman said, ‘get back in your cab and drive on; you’re causing a back-up.’
The taxi driver scowled at me but said nothing and drove away once the policeman had dispersed the crowd and got the traffic flowing again.
Back on the pavement the cyclist had removed his helmet.
‘Guess I’m getting the tube home,’ he said.
‘Please,’ I said, ‘let me pay for a taxi. It was all my fault, after all. Well not entirely. I mean if it hadn’t been for that Inez. If you’d seen her upper arms in that Armani dress. She was always shapely, well more sylphlike, really. But she must have been working on her biceps and triceps, probably in training to make a grab f
or Anthony the minute my back was turned. And if you’d seen his face! How could he do this to me after everything we’ve been through? Yes, I know it hasn’t been all plain sailing but what relationship is? I mean my parents divorced and now they’re getting back together again and I want to know what Anthony has to say for himself because from where I was standing it all looked a little too cosy to be explained away so easily. You can see that can’t you?’
‘Um …’ The cyclist’s helmet fell from his hands and as he tried to catch it his mangled bike fell against the railings. ‘I think … I think I might have a bit of concussion after all. I think I should just …’ He walked away, working his wonky bike in and out of the crowd of people who were still filming him on their phones. I watched his broad shoulders become lost in the flow of pedestrians as they parted to allow him through and closed around him until he was out of sight.
I turned back to the road. The little green man was flashing and I heard the beeping that allowed pedestrians the right of way. I blinked several times, bit my bottom lip, and crossed the road. Though I managed to get home in one piece, by the time I crash-landed on my red sofa in the living room, I was still seeing red.
Chapter 24
The Ex
Have you ever had the feeling that, for reasons beyond your control, you find yourself in the middle of a living nightmare?
I remember Riley trying to tell me about a nightmare she’d had, once. She recounted it something like this:
“So, I was in the house on my own. Well I wasn’t on my own – Peter Dinklage, as Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones was there. And it wasn’t actually my house and I’ve never even seen Game of Thrones, well, not the whole series. So, anyway, I came rushing into the kitchen and someone had left the fridge door open and there was blood pouring out of it. Except, it wasn’t blood, it was the soft centres of Lindor chocolate balls and it wasn’t exactly pouring, it was more like oozing because the centres are quite thick, right? And so, I went to close the fridge door and I knew then that it wasn’t my fridge; it was my mum’s fridge. Only it was the one she had before the Smeg.”
