Kiss

by Jill Mansell

  Gina smiled. ‘And that is?’

  This time, leaning out of his chair, Sam planted a brief kiss on her cheek. ‘My dear Mrs Lawrence,’ he said, his expression deadpan, ‘living, of course.’

  ‘I don’t know how Lucille’s going to cope when Gina moves back to Kingsley Grove,’ said Katerina drily, ten days later. ‘If we aren’t careful, she might even defect.’

  Izzy, who had been engrossed in the task of dyeing her hair good old Glossy Blackberry, wiped a trail of dark blue dye from her cheek and spun around to gaze at her in surprise.

  ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Why on earth should she?’

  From her position in the bath, Katerina watched as a shower of inky droplets hit the basin. Hoping that none were also staining the expensive ivory carpet, she soaped her arms and explained patiently, ‘Where Gina goes, Doug follows. It just occurred to me that Lucille, in turn, might want to follow Doug.’

  ‘Hell.’ Izzy nodded. It made sense. Not normal sense, maybe, but certainly Lucille-type sense.

  ‘Mum, you’re dripping.’

  But Izzy, lost in thought, barely noticed. ‘She mustn’t leave. I’ll give her a pay rise.’

  Katerina grinned. ‘She’d prefer Doug, gift-wrapped.’

  ‘Well, she can’t have him. Poor Doug . . . all he wants is Gina, and she treats him like a piece of old furniture.’ She shook her head. ‘No, what we need if we’re going to hang on to Lucille is some kind of incentive.’

  ‘You mean another man.’ Reaching for the bottle of bubble bath, Katerina poured herself a generous extra helping and turned on the hot tap with her toes. ‘We don’t seem to be doing terribly well at the moment, where men are concerned. No wonder Lucille’s fed up. Simon’s gone off me, Sam’s gone off to the States . . . even the milkman’s too scared to ring the doorbell any more. There’s nothing else for it, Mum - you’ll just have to find yourself a toyboy.’

  ‘Either that,’ said Izzy, gloomily surveying the dye-spattered carpet, ‘or we start writing begging letters. To Trevor McDonald.’

  Chapter 58

  Izzy barely had time these days to so much as fill in a Dateline questionnaire, let alone find herself a toyboy. Christmas was approaching, the album was finally nearing completion and the success of ‘Kiss’ ensured a steady stream of interviews, photo-shoots and public appearances. To her intense frustration, however, being rushed off her feet hadn’t succeeded in getting her over Sam.

  Absent Sam, still over in New York, occupied her mind at the most inconvenient times. Izzy tried to tell herself that it was only because she didn’t have a sex life, but it didn’t help. Everyone else was happy - even Doug, still pursuing Gina with dog-like devotion, seemed happy enough in his own way - and it only made her own unhappiness that much harder to bear. Christmas had always been her absolute favourite time of year, but this time she possessed no festive spirit at all. Festive, she thought dismally, was above and beyond the call of duty right now. The only thing she really wanted for Christmas was a decent night’s sleep.

  Major Reginald Perrett-Dwyer, ex-Grenadier Guards, veteran of the Second World War and regular contributor to the letters column of The Times, disapproved of most things. More than almost anything else at all, however, he disapproved of female singers with disreputable lifestyles moving into the house next door to his own and disrupting his own highly ordered existence. Despite maintaining watch from his drawing-room window, he had yet to ascertain who actually lived at Number Forty-five and who was merely visiting, but the non-stop comings and goings of so many people - at what seemed like all hours of the day and night - only served to increase his annoyance and send his blood pressure soaring.

  ‘Drug-taking and orgies,’ he boomed, slamming down his binoculars and glaring at his poor long-suffering wife. ‘Mark my words, Millicent. That’s what they’re up to in there. If I had my way, I’d launch a dawn raid on that house. These types of people need teaching a lesson . . .’

  ‘I thought they seemed quite pleasant,’ protested Millicent Perrett-Dwyer, her eyebrows twitching with anxiety. Personally, she thought it rather exciting to be living next door to a pop star, and Izzy Van Asch couldn’t have been nicer when she’d plucked up the courage last week to ring the doorbell and ask to borrow a jar of mustard. Her husband, however, who disapproved passionately of domestic inefficiency, didn’t know about this. Just as he didn’t know that each time he set out on his brisk morning constitutional his wife furtively turned the wireless from the World Service to Radio One and sang along to the music while tackling the breakfast dishes.

  ‘Nothing but lazy, good-for-nothing vagabonds,’ snorted the major, bristling once more as the Van Asch woman herself drew up outside in her flashy German car and ran, long hair flying, into the house. ‘Look at that, I ask you! Can’t park straight and hasn’t even bothered to lock the damn thing. It’s an open invitation to car thieves . . .’

  ‘Oh, do come away from the window, dear,’ begged his wife, terribly afraid that he was on the verge of making another of his infamous scenes. ‘They aren’t doing us any harm, after all.’

  But scenes, unfortunately, were what made life worth living for Reginald Perrett-Dwyer. ‘Harm?’ he barked, staring at his wife as if she was quite mad. ‘Is your sense of judgement really as poor as your memory, woman? How can you stand there and say they haven’t done us any harm, after what that vicious brute did to Bettina!’

  Here, thought Izzy, was living proof that not all dogs resembled their owners. The major, gaunt, upright and congenitally stroppy, was still in full flow and showing no sign at all of running out of breath. Bettina, by contrast, rested peacefully at his feet. Plump and sweet-natured, she seemed to tolerate her master’s ranting with almost benevolent amusement. Whenever Izzy caught her eye she wagged her tail as if silently apologizing for all the fuss.

  ‘. . . and it is no laughing matter!’ stormed the major, intercepting Izzy’s smile. ‘That irresponsible hound of yours has violated an innocent young bitch, and I demand to know what you intend doing about it.’

  ‘Look, I really am very sorry,’ said Izzy in soothing tones. ‘But are you absolutely sure Jericho’s the father?’

  The major’s agitation reached new heights. ‘Of course I’m sure!’ he spluttered furiously. ‘That animal arrived here six weeks ago. According to the vet, Bettina is five weeks pregnant. No other dog has been near her . . . has ever been near her . . . and I take great exception to the fact that you should even suggest otherwise.’

  ‘It was just a—’ began Izzy, but he quelled her with a look.

  ‘Maybe such a suggestion is only to be expected from someone of your . . . type,’ he concluded heavily. ‘But I can assure you, Miss Van Asch, that Bettina has been brought up in a household of the very highest moral repute.’

  It was deeply ironic, thought Izzy several hours later, that it should have been Major Reginald Perrett-Dwyer who - in effect - had broken the news to her. Until then, it hadn’t so much as crossed her mind.

  Now that they had been spelt out for her, however, the facts were inescapable. It was six weeks since Jericho had come to board with them.

  Six weeks since she and Sam had made love.

  More than six weeks since her last period . . .

  ‘Oh, Bettina,’ murmured Izzy with resignation, in the privacy of her darkened bedroom. ‘Pregnant. You and me both.’

  ‘That’s no good,’ Gina sighed. ‘Doug, stop . . . you’re doing it all wrong . . . that doesn’t go there . . .’

  Doug, his forehead creased with concentration, straightened up and took a step backwards. Something went crack under his left shoe.

  ‘Oh, brilliant,’ said Gina in despairing tones. ‘Now you’ve trodden on the fairy. Well done.’

  Just for a moment, he was tempted to tell her to decorate her own bloody tree. What should have been an enjoyable evening was threatening to turn into yet another major disappointment, and he was beginning to tire of them. It was all very well for Gina,
lounging on the sofa and barking instructions like some parade-ground sergeant-major, but hanging baubles and draping garlands of tinsel simply wasn’t his forte and he was damned if he was going to apologise for that.

  ‘Look, why don’t you get Izzy and Kat over here to do this?’ he said levelly, stripping the imperfectly hung garlands from the tree and dropping them back into their box. ‘Seeing as I’m clearly not up to it.’

  Gina, unaware that the worm was on the verge of turning, simply shrugged. ‘I suppose I’ll have to,’ she replied with irritation. ‘At least they understand how it’s meant to be done. Where are you going?’

  ‘Home.’ Doug reached for his jacket.

  ‘But I thought you were staying for supper.’ She looked up, startled. ‘I’ve defrosted a chilli.’

  But Doug had had enough. Winding his scarf around his neck, he said recklessly, ‘I’m eating out tonight.’

  ‘Who with? A client?’

  ‘No. With Lucille Devlin.’

  ‘You’ll never guess what,’ said Gina when Izzy arrived at Kingsley Grove an hour later. Sounding intrigued and at the same time faintly put out, she went on, ‘Doug’s gone out to dinner tonight. With Lucille.’

  You’ll never guess what, thought Izzy, struggling to keep a straight face, but Lucille is at this precise moment in my house, drinking gin and bawling her eyes out over a video rerun of Ryan’s Daughter.

  Then her gaze slid sideways, to the pile of half-written Christmas cards on the coffee table with Gina’s address book lying open next to them.

  ‘Why shouldn’t they have dinner together?’ she said lightly. ‘They get on wonderfully well. Doug’s an eligible bachelor.’

  Gina’s mouth narrowed with disapproval. ‘And Lucille’s a married woman.’

  ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ Izzy confided. ‘It’s a marriage in inverted commas only.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Now come on, tell me what you want me to do with this poor naked tree of yours. And I’m going to need the step ladder. Where is it?’

  ‘In the cupboard under the stairs,’ replied Gina absently, her mind still occupied by thoughts of Doug and Lucille.

  Izzy rolled up the sleeves of her yellow MBT sweatshirt in a businesslike manner and began investigating the glittering contents of the Christmas box. ‘I’ll make a start here,’ she said, lifting out a tangled skein of lilac-and-silver fairy-lights, ‘and you can take that chilli out of the oven. I’m hungry.’

  The moment Gina was out of the room, Izzy dropped the string of lights and made a grab for the address book on the coffee table. Feeling like a sneak thief, riffling through the pages until she came to S, she breathed a sigh of relief when Sam’s New York phone number and address leapt out at her. Hastily, she scribbled them down on the back of an unused Christmas card and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans. She hadn’t decided yet quite how she was going to break the news to Sam, but at least she now had the means with which to contact him. Even if it had been necessary, she thought wryly, to do a James Bond and practically steal the information from an unsuspecting accomplice . . .

  Chapter 59

  Having boarded the jumbo jet eight hours earlier buoyed up by determination and a sense of exhilaration at her own daring, Izzy’s self-confidence seeped steadily away as the plane came in to land. No longer separated from Sam by the mighty stretch of the Atlantic Ocean, she had effectively sealed her fate. There could be no backing out now. She was here, in person, to see him . . . to tell him that she was pregnant . . . and to gauge his reaction first-hand.

  And although it was a distinctly scary prospect, it was really the only way. Writing a letter, she had concluded after the fortieth failed attempt, was beyond her. The words simply wouldn’t come. Neither, she realised, would a phone call work. Apart from the fact that she undoubtedly would lose her nerve, burble incoherently and get everything wrong, she wouldn’t be able to tell what he was really thinking. She’d witnessed his ability to mime despair while speaking soothingly into the phone too many times to be able to take his words at face value.

  No, doing it that way was out of the question. She definitely needed to be there, to say the words and gauge his true reaction for herself.

  And now I am here, she reminded herself, as the plane approached the runway at JFK and began to engage reverse thrust.

  ‘Nervous?’ asked the middle-aged businessman next to her, having observed her sudden pallor.

  Izzy nodded. She had never been so scared in her life.

  ‘You can hold my hand if you like.’

  She had to smile. With a brief shake of her head, she replied, ‘Thanks, but it’s not that kind of nervous.’

  Already cloaked with snow, New York had been promised a further blizzard before nightfall. Having retrieved her suitcase - the infamous suitcase - and cleared customs without difficulty, Izzy jostled for a cab outside the main terminal.

  ‘Seventeen below zero,’ the driver laconically informed her, glancing over his shoulder and looking unimpressed. ‘An’ it’s gonna get worse. Where to, lady?’

  Her teeth were chattering so much, she sounded like a typewriter on speed. Struggling to get the words out between shivers and combing frozen fingers through her damp, dishevelled hair, she said, ‘C-can you rec-commend a d-decent hotel?’

  ‘Hey lady, I can recommend the Waldorf-Astoria.’ He had an accent like the pregnant one in Cagney and Lacey and his tone of voice betrayed his exasperation. ‘I can also recommend the Tokyo Hilton and the Happy Traveller Motel in Milwaukee. Couldya be, like, more specific?’

  Smartass, thought Izzy, glaring at the back of his horrible head. And to think that when Vivienne had told her about New York cabbies she’d refused to believe her.

  ‘No problem,’ she replied shortly, and with as much sarcasm as she dared muster. ‘The Waldorf will do just f-fine. ’

  The hotel was more than just fine; it was unbelievably opulent. Upon hearing the price of a room, Izzy very nearly wheeled round and headed back out of the lobby into the street. But the street was awash with grey slush, she desperately needed a hot bath, and there was always the hideous chance that her cab driver might still be outside, waiting to greet her reappearance with a knowing smile . . . Besides, now that she had come this far, what difference did a few hundred dollars more make? She was here on a mission, possibly the most important mission of her life, and she might as well do it in style.

  A long scented bath, she concluded, was a great way of putting off something that had to be done but which you weren’t looking forward to doing. Izzy stayed submerged as long as possible, gazing at her flat stomach, realizing how it had looked eighteen years ago and envisaging the repeat performance ahead of her. By next summer, taking a bath would mean submerging the rest of her body and watching the water lap against the sides of a smoothly rounded protruding belly the size of a football. Every so often the perfect symmetry would be distorted by a miniature arm or leg kicking out. At other times - rather less pleasurably - an invisible kick would be aimed at her bladder. And the inconveniently positioned bump would make painting her own toenails a virtual impossibility.

  The burning question, of course, was whether or not Sam would be there with her, to witness the miraculous changes her body was about to undergo. Would they be a proper couple, like Vivienne and Terry, or had she driven him away when she’d insisted that such a future was out of the question because her career came first, and because she was just too old to start having babies all over again?

  But although she would never have chosen for this to happen, she didn’t resent the fact that it had. Maybe it was the hormones taking over, but the thought of being thirty-seven years old and accidentally pregnant no longer seemed as alarming in reality as it had in theory. With or without Sam she would cope, just as she had coped all those years ago when Katerina had arrived on the scene.

  Biting her lip, Izzy envisaged once more the process of picking up the phone and dialling Sam’s numbe
r, which she now knew off by heart. It had to be done, before she lost her nerve completely. Although maybe she’d just repaint her toenails first . . .

  The phone rang seven times before it was picked up, by which time Izzy had begun to feel quite sick. All she was doing, she reminded herself, was calling Sam to let him know she was in New York to promote ‘Kiss’, and to suggest they might meet for a drink. It wasn’t, after all, as if this was the big one, the moment when she had to take a deep breath and tell him about the baby . . .

  But the voice at the other end of the line didn’t belong to Sam. Furthermore, it was a female voice, sexy and slow and sounding as if its owner had just been woken up.

  Praying that in her agitation she’d got the wrong number, Izzy cleared her throat and said, ‘Er . . . is Sam there?’