Kiss

by Jill Mansell

  Andrew took her in his arms and held her while she sobbed quietly against his chest. ‘You should be in hospital,’ he said, stunned by the news. ‘You should have phoned me, for God’s sake.’

  ‘The doctor examined me, made sure I was OK,’ whispered Marcy bravely. ‘And I didn’t want to disturb you . . . I knew how important your conference was. There wasn’t anything you could do, and I wanted to be on my own to have time to come to terms with . . . what had happened.’

  ‘You should have phoned,’ repeated Andrew, stroking her hair and wondering how it was possible to feel this numb. Guilt warred with relief that she hadn’t tried to contact him, but for the loss of the baby he was unable to summon up any emotion at all. A child wasn’t something he’d ever wanted in the first place, and even knowing that Marcy was pregnant, he’d found it curiously difficult to envisage the end result.

  Except that now, there would be no end result. Which meant that his fate - Marcy, marriage and fatherhood - was no longer sealed. Katerina . . .

  ‘Poor darling,’ he said absently, his mind racing on ahead. ‘Can I get you anything? What would you like?’

  Sex would have been nice. Marcy wondered how soon she could decently resume that side of their relationship. The prospect of weeks of enforced celibacy wasn’t exactly cheering.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said, her voice husky from crying. ‘How did your conference go, anyway?’

  ‘Hmm?’ Andrew was still lost in thought. He had arranged to meet Kat later this evening; clearly he wouldn’t be able to do so now. He could scarcely abandon Marcy, but dare he run the risk of phoning her at Gina’s house to let her know of the change of circumstances?

  ‘The conference,’ Marcy repeated, nestling into the curve of his arms and thankful that he hadn’t asked any further difficult questions. ‘Was it a success?’

  An image of Katerina, sitting up in bed sipping her morning coffee and smiling at him, flashed through Andrew’s mind. Naked, happy and utterly desirable, she was everything he’d ever dreamed of.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, wondering whether the telephone cord would stretch as far as the bathroom. ‘It went very well. Very well indeed.’

  Chapter 25

  Izzy hadn’t decided whether to be amused or annoyed with Ralph for playing such a filthy trick. On the one hand, it was flattering to know that he still cared, yet on the other it was poor Gina who was being used, and who was going to be hurt, and Izzy herself who, in turn, would have to suffer the inevitable consequences.

  The decision was made for her in a flash when she answered the door at a quarter to eight. Ralph, in all-too-familiar acting mode, did the faintest of double takes and said in astonished tones, ‘I don’t believe it! Izzy . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, cut the crap, Ralph.’ Grabbing his arm, she hauled him briskly inside. When they reached the sitting room she closed the door and leaned against it, taking in the sharp, charcoal-grey suit, pale pink shirt and . . . ugh . . . grey shoes. When he lifted his arm to push back a lock of hair she even glimpsed a flash of gold bracelet. Thank goodness Sam wasn’t here.

  ‘Now look,’ she began, her voice low and her expression deadly serious. ‘Gina will be down here any minute, and because she doesn’t know what a bastard you are, she has spent four hours getting ready to go out with you. She hasn’t so much as looked at another man since her husband left her. This is her first date in probably fifteen years. So I’m just warning you, if you hurt her, you’re in big trouble.’

  ‘But—’ said Ralph, looking injured and inwardly cursing the failure of his plan. He had been relying on the element of surprise; it simply hadn’t occurred to him that Gina would tell Izzy the name of the man who had invited her out to dinner.

  ‘But nothing.’ Izzy was listening to the sound of Gina’s footsteps on the stairs. ‘Just remember that if you hurt her, I shall personally kill you.’

  ‘Did I hear the doorbell?’ said Gina. Her nerves had miraculously vanished and she was feeling quite giddy with excitement. At that moment the phone rang.

  ‘Ralph and I were just introducing ourselves,’ Izzy explained. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll answer it. You two go off and have a lovely time. And make sure he takes you somewhere expensive,’ she added, giving Ralph the benefit of her most innocent smile. ‘He looks as if he can afford to show a girl a good time . . .’

  ‘Don’t take any notice of Izzy,’ she heard Gina saying as she left the room. ‘She’s only joking.’

  Izzy picked up the phone in the kitchen and said, ‘Hallo?’

  Andrew hesitated. It wasn’t Gina, but was it definitely Kat?

  ‘Hallo,’ repeated Izzy in neutral tones, still planning in her mind a suitably apt murder.

  On the other end of the line, Andrew anxiously waited for her to say something else so that he might glean a clue as to the identity of the voice, and Izzy, who could hear him breathing, rapidly answered his prayer. In a voice rigid with disdain, she said, ‘Piss off, pervert,’ and hung up.

  Definitely not Kat, thought Andrew.

  If Joel McGill was as tall, dark and handsome as she had imagined, thought Izzy, then he must be hiding beneath one of the tables. For no man fitting that description - in even its loosest terms - was visible to the naked eye.

  She was not, however, going to let that put her off. Since nobody in the audience was wearing a jacket emblazoned with the famous yellow-and-white MBT logo, nor even a discreet badge proclaiming, ‘I am an A&R man,’ she had simply sung her heart out and ensured that even the least interested and most unlikely looking customer had been singled out during the course of the set for special attention and a dazzling smile.

  Now, for the penultimate song of the evening, she stepped down from the stage and moved towards the nearest tables, where a group of businessmen had been applauding with particular enthusiasm. Behind her, Terry the pianist struck up the bluesy opening chords of ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’, and the audience, recognizing the song, broke into renewed applause. The regulars among them knew that this was one of her particular favourites. For her finale, Izzy would return to the stage and belt out ‘Cabaret’ and every spine in the house would tingle because the power and passion in her voice made it impossible not to.

  The evening had gone well, the audience were appreciative and Izzy was enjoying herself as she swayed among the tables. When the song was almost over she began to make her way back towards the stage, smiling as she did so at one of the quieter-looking middle-aged businessmen. She was mid-verse when she let out a scream. ‘OUCH!’

  The quiet, middle-aged businessman’s hand, which had shot up the back of her skirt and pinched her thigh, was gone again in a flash. Izzy swung around, stared at him, saw his leery smile. She continued singing, as if the hesitation had been deliberate, and coolly ignored the nudges of his companions.

  ‘Last song, now,’ she murmured into the microphone, and nodded to Terry to indicate that she was staying where she was. The audience applauded once more as Terry moved smoothly into ‘Cabaret’, and Izzy, giving the quiet businessman an encouraging smile, prayed harder than she’d ever prayed before in her life that he wasn’t the man from MBT.

  As she sang her way through the opening verse, she moved closer to him, swaying her hips like Liza Minelli and reaching out until her fingers were only inches from his shoulder. He was grinning up at her now, his yellowed teeth revealed and his face glistening with sweat.

  It was like ripping off an Elastoplast, all over in a flash. Izzy, dancing away, was up on the stage almost before he realised what had happened.

  ‘. . . Life is a grey toupee, old son, come to the grey toupee . . ’ she sang joyously, waving the trophy above her own head like a big hairy handkerchief, and the audience, many of whom had witnessed the businessman’s initial crude assault, rocked with laughter. The ensuing cheers almost brought the house down. Izzy bowed and tossed the toupee back to its apoplectic owner, whose friends were laughing more loudly than anyone else.

  ‘Since I dou
bt very much whether I still work here,’ Izzy announced cradling the microphone in both hands, ‘I shall just say that I hope you enjoyed the show. You’ve been a wonderful audience.Thank you, and good night.’

  Joel McGill was still crying with laughter when he entered the tiny cubbyhole which Izzy called her dressing room. She had to sit him down on the only chair, hand him a box of Kleenex and pour him a drink before he could even speak.

  ‘I thought it was part of the act,’ he managed to say eventually, though his shoulders still shook. ‘Then I realised it wasn’t . . .’

  ‘That’s nothing,’ replied Izzy. ‘Think how I felt, not knowing whether he was you . . . or you were him . . .’ She thought for a second, then shrugged. ‘If you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he agreed, wiping his eyes with a handful of peach-shaded tissues. ‘That was fantastic. I think I love you.’

  That had been one half of the fantasy, thought Izzy with a wry smile, but the rest of it appeared to have gone somewhat awry. Joel McGill wasn’t supposed to be five feet two, with orange hair the texture of a Brillo pad, tiny round spectacles and the very smallest nose she’d ever seen. Neither had it occurred to her, while she was scouring the audience, to seek out a man wearing a powder-blue Argyll patterned pullover, an orange shirt and the kind of tartan trousers more commonly found on a golf course.

  ‘You don’t look like an A&R manager,’ she said finally.

  ‘No?’ Still smiling, Joel McGill blew his nose with vigour. ‘What do I look like?’

  Izzy knew what she thought. Instead, tactfully, she said, ‘Jack Nicklaus?’

  He gave her a look that told her she’d disappointed him. ‘Really?’

  ‘OK. A train-spotter,’ she confessed with reluctance, and he burst out laughing once more.

  ‘I don’t know why you had to make me say it,’ Izzy grumbled. ‘It isn’t exactly enhancing my career prospects, after all.’

  ‘Listen,’ he said, leaning forward and stuffing the tissues into the back pocket of his terrible trousers. ‘I’m one of the best A&R managers in the business. This means, happily, that I don’t need to try and look like one. What’s important to me is spotting new talent, assessing its potential and signing it up. Now, I spent a great deal of time yesterday listening to your demo tape, and tonight I’ve seen you . . . in action, so to speak.’

  ‘Mmm?’ said Izzy with extreme caution. Her pulse was racing and her fingernails were digging into her palms.

  ‘And since I liked, very much, what I both heard and saw, why don’t you stop grumbling and let me be the one to worry about your career prospects?’

  ‘You mean . . . ?’

  ‘I’m offering you a contract on behalf of MBT Records,’ said Joel McGill, with an oddly engaging grin. ‘Although there must be, I’m afraid, one proviso.’

  Anything, thought Izzy passionately, anything at all. If it were stipulated in the contract, she’d even wear baggy tartan trousers.

  Almost speechless with joy and gratitude, the most she could manage to get out was, ‘What . . . ?’

  ‘The trick with the toupee,’ he informed her, struggling unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. ‘Whatever you do, don’t try it out on the president of MBT. Not unless you really want to die young.’

  Guiltily aware that she should be studying for tomorrow’s exam, which was chemistry, Katerina had baked herself a chocolate-fudge cake instead and eaten it while mindlessly watching an hour-long episode of a serial she had never seen before, and which she would certainly never watch again. At least both Gina and Izzy had been out, which meant that neither of them realised she had spent the earlier part of her evening sitting alone in a winebar in Kensington High Street, sipping Coke and waiting for Andrew to turn up. When, after an endless ninety minutes he still hadn’t arrived, she had returned home and tried hard not to allow her imagination to run riot. He could be in hospital, he could be dead, Marcy could be in hospital . . . the possibilities had been both endless and agonizing . . .

  When the phone shrilled at eleven-fifteen, Katerina and Jericho both jumped. Cake crumbs showered on to the carpet as she raced to answer it.

  ‘Hallo?’ she whispered, and this time it was so unmistakably her voice that Andrew didn’t need to hesitate.

  ‘Darling, it’s me. I’m so sorry, I’ve been trying to get hold of you, but I’m in the bathroom and Marcy’s next door.’

  ‘You’re OK?’ Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. She slid down the wall, ducking to avoid Jericho’s chocolatey kisses, and rested on her heels. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Marcy had a miscarriage yesterday.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘She lost the baby,’ Andrew repeated, his tone even. It would be indecent to sound too overjoyed, yet at the same time it was the answer to their unspoken prayers . . .

  ‘Oh, poor Marcy,’ breathed Katerina, her palms now clammy with perspiration. At the same time relief flooded through her, because Andrew was all right. ‘Is she . . . very upset?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said briefly. ‘That’s why I couldn’t leave her. Darling, you understand, don’t you. I wanted to see you tonight, but—’

  ‘Sssh.’ Unbidden, the image of Andrew and herself in bed flashed through her mind. While she had been losing her virginity, Marcy had lost the baby. Overcome with shame, she said, ‘Don’t say that. Of course you have to stay with her. Look, I have to go now. Someone’s coming home.’

  ‘But—’

  Quietly replacing the receiver, cutting him off in midprotest, Katerina realised that she felt sick. She was the Other Woman, and quite suddenly she was no longer sure whether she was equipped to deal with it. Simon had been right; it wasn’t clever and it wasn’t a game. It was becoming suddenly, frighteningly real.

  From her vantage point, she held the phone in her lap and watched Gina - the other Other Woman, if she only knew it - wave a fond goodbye to Ralph.

  ‘Gosh, you startled me.’ Gina’s eyes were bright. She looked so happy.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Katerina, rising to her feet and feeling old. ‘I was on the phone. So, how did your date with the actor go? I thought you might have invited him in for coffee.’

  She had been looking forward to seeing Ralph and out-acting him. Now she was glad she didn’t have to.

  ‘I did ask, but he has to be up at five o’clock tomorrow morning.’ Gina, blushing slightly, looked happier than ever. Katerina, summoning up a smile, thought, You coward, Ralph.

  ‘But did you have a nice evening?’ she prompted. ‘Do you think you’ll see him again?’

  ‘We had a wonderful evening,’ Gina replied proudly. ‘And yes, I’m seeing him again. Tomorrow night, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’ Katerina tried not to look too astonished. ‘Good heavens, he must be keen.’

  ‘I know,’ said Gina, so dazed with joy that when she tried to hang up her jacket she missed the coat stand altogether. ‘It’s incredible. We just seem to have so much in common . . .’

  Chapter 26

  Seduction Rule Number One, thought Vivienne cheerfully as she knocked on Sam’s bedroom door: catch your subject naked and unaware.

  After a long silence, Sam said, ‘Go away,’ which wasn’t the most promising of starts, but Vivienne had decided that enough was enough. The way they had been carrying on for the past few weeks was plain silly. Smiling to herself, she knocked once more.

  ‘I said . . . go away.’

  Rule Number Two, Vivienne reminded herself: offer your subject unimaginable delights.

  ‘I’m making breakfast,’ she explained. ‘Bacon and mushroom sandwiches . . . but if you’d rather go back to sleep . . .’

  There was another long silence. Finally, he grumbled, ‘I’m awake now. OK.’

  ‘Such gratitude,’ Vivienne replied lightly. ‘It’ll be ready in ten minutes.’

  Moments later, she heard the shower begin to run, as she had known it would. Grinning to herself, she returned to the kitchen a
nd turned the heat under the grill down very low indeed.

  The noise of the shower meant that Sam didn’t hear the bathroom door click open. Vivienne, revelling in the voyeuristic pleasure of watching him through the frosted glass, slipped out of her robe and moved quietly towards the shower cubicle.

  ‘What the—’ spluttered Sam, as flesh encountered flesh.

  ‘Sssh, no need to panic,’ Vivienne murmured, behind him. ‘I’m a trained lifeguard.You won’t drown.’