by Jules Wake
‘I’m going to do loads. All the things I should have done. There’s a scriptwriting course in London. Two months in the evenings. I’m going to polish up all the scripts I’ve written over the last couple of years and I’m going to go back to Andrew Fisher and hassle him, push to find a backer. I’m going to make that happen. It’s crazy waiting on him.’ The words poured out in a confessional deluge.
‘Sorry, that’s rather stream of consciousness. If I’m honest it’s all been there at the back of my head for the last few weeks and then today I realised there’s nothing stopping me. Except me.’
Angela nodded and smiled.
‘Good for you.’
‘You don’t think I’ve gone completely mad?’ Carrie bit her lip. She could withstand Alan’s concerns.
‘Not at all.’ There were tears in Angela’s eyes.
‘Hey, don’t cry. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.’
Angela laughed. ‘I’m not worried. I’m relieved. You’ve no idea how good it is to see you firing on all fifty-nine cylinders again.’
Carrie stared at her sister. She’d expected her to worry about money and security. ‘Seriously?’
Angela rose and came over to her side of the table and looped an arm around her to hug her. ‘Yes, you big noodle. It’s about time you got off your …’ As she paused, Carrie loved that she still couldn’t quite bring herself to say the word ‘arse’, ‘backside and did something. You haven’t been you for a long time.’
Carrie stood up and hugged her sister back, tears seeping out as she held on tight. It felt good to know that someone else understood her. It was time she escaped her own self-imposed bonds.
And what about Richard? Have you heard from him?’
Carrie stilled. ‘No. And I don’t expect to. Sorry, Ang, that boat has sailed. He’s back in the States filming.’
‘What about the divorce? You don’t need it now, but will you still go ahead?’
‘It’s about time, although I don’t want to stir up the press again.’ If Richard wanted a divorce, he could bloody well sort it out. He had people like Arla to do that sort of thing for him.
‘Mum, have you been shopping yet? We’re out of biscuits again.’ Jade wandered in and hoisted herself up onto the kitchen counter. ‘What’s the goss? Did you get the sack?’
‘No, I quit.’
‘Good for you. That’s cool.’
‘Eat some fruit,’ said Angela, offering Jade a bowl full of apples and rather wizened satsumas.
Jade pulled a face and selected an apple, checking its skin with forensic intensity before deigning to take a bite. ‘So.’ She crunched for minute. ‘When do you think that Richard will get us tickets for the premiere of Turn on the Stars?’
Carrie snorted and spat out her tea. ‘You are kidding.’
‘He said he would.’
‘When?’
‘When I asked him.’ Jade hopped off the side, matter of fact and nonchalant, and walked out of the room.
While half of Carrie itched to shake the information out of her irritating niece, the other half refused to give her the satisfaction. Instead she sipped at her tea and gave the grain of the wood on the table a very thorough examination.
Angela took pity. ‘She sent him a text to say thank you for the flowers. He responded and asked if she’d like to go and take some friends.’
Carrie rolled her eyes, tracing a groove in the wood with one finger. ‘That’s nice of him,’ she said airily, clenching the fist of her other hand under her thigh, out of sight.
‘He’s a nice man,’ said Angela.
‘And what about your nice man? Phil. What’s happening with him?’
‘He’s coming over in October for a visit. We’ll see each other then. Take it one step at a time.’
For a very brief moment, Carrie envied her sister. Why couldn’t she be like that? With Richard it had been all or nothing. Complete and immediate from day one. There’d been no waiting around, taking it slowly or building the relationship. Like lemmings they’d hurled themselves straight off the cliff. And she wouldn’t have changed a thing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
‘Hi Andrew, its Carrie Hayes.’ She put a big tick next to his name on her list and drew an arrow to the action plan table on the A4 sheet of paper.
‘About bloody time too. Where the hell have you been?’
‘What?’ She stopped doodling around the arrow.
‘I called you two effing weeks ago.’ That was typical of Andrew. It wouldn’t occur to him to call again. ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t interested.’
‘Sorry. With the media frenzy, my phone —’
‘What media frenzy? Any hoo, now I’ve got you. We’ve got a space. I want to start casting straight away. You never said you knew Miranda. She says you’ve been collaborating.’
Carrie snorted and threw down her pen. That was kind of Miranda.
‘Can you get down here to see some of the auditions? I’d like your input. There’ll be tweaks to the script and we’ll work on the characters. You need to see who we’ve cast.’
‘Hang on, Andrew.’ She jumped up from her desk. ‘You mean you’ve got a backer and a theatre? When did all this happen?’ Her heart almost leapfrogged right out of her damn chest. This was all news to her.
‘I said, didn’t I?’
‘No, you didn’t.’ Sometimes you had to be forceful with Andrew. It had something to do with being a director, too used to everyone doing as they were told. ‘Back up and tell me properly.’ She walked to the window, pressing her forehead against the cold glass, her fingers clutching the phone so hard they almost squeezed it out of her hand.
‘Ooh, I love a feisty woman. You and I are going to work rather well together. There’s a space re-opening early after a refurb and another play was due to be put on but the producer’s dog got killed or his granny died, can’t remember, any hoo, no matter. Ill wind. The space came up and then everything fell into place. I haven’t got a backer but it’s a matter of time. Now are you coming up for the casting or not?’
If he’d been in the room, he’d now be minus a hand.
When she put the phone down, staring out of the window, unseeing, she let out a huge squeal. Her play. On. In London. In the West End. Miranda Buckley had said nice things about her. This was the start of things.
The casting was, unusually, taking place in the theatre, which she rather liked. It made it more real. Arriving outside, she pinched herself, yep, definitely awake, not dreaming, and with a sigh of happiness, walked through the doors, inhaling the sharp, chemical smell of newness.
She imagined the paint had just about dried on the walls as she picked her way down the corridor down to the auditorium, dodging the obstacle course of ladders, discarded paint tins and downed tools.
It mirrored her life this last week. Dusting off manuscripts from their metaphorical bottom drawers in folders on her laptop, polishing up her words, poring over lists of agents and firing off emails, submitting and researching every last relevant competition or opening. Like the week before opening night, it had been a frantic last-minute kerfuffle to bring everything up to scratch.
‘Carrie, darling.’ Andrew kissed her on both cheeks, his huge hipster beard rasping across her face. ‘Isn’t this a fabulous space? God bless Godfrey’s granny, or was it his dog? Any hoo. Great isn’t? We can use it to our advantage to convey the emptiness of Ella’s life.’
She nodded. That sort of thing was his job. She’d given him the story. The words. It would be interesting to see what he did with them. Her skin tingled and her blood raced, a temporary reprieve from the punishing black shadow hanging over every waking moment.
For the next few hours, she could focus on the thrill of being back, working in a theatre again. She’d come home, where she belonged. Choosing a seat in the second row in the half-lit auditorium, she sat down looking up at the lights, the sound box and the stage, forcing herself to enjoy the moment.
‘I’ve ask
ed a couple of actors to read for Ella today, some young hopefuls. I’ve chosen the final scene, where it’s decided whether the shoe fits. I’ve got four girls coming this afternoon.’
‘Okay.’ Great. That was a good sign, an omen, he’d picked her favourite scene in the play.
‘It’s going to be vitally important to get that sense of chemistry between Ella and Mr Charming. I want to fine- tune Mr Charming before we introduce them. Would you mind reading for Ella this morning?’
‘No, that would be fine.’ She gulped at the unexpected invitation. It had been a while since she’d stepped on a stage. Biting her lip, she hoped that once she got up there, she’d be okay.
‘Although I will need a script.’ She gave him a light tinkling laugh, hoping it sounded natural. ‘I don’t know it quite line by line.’
Andrew joined in. ‘Wasn’t expecting you to, my dear.’ He brought his wrist up to his eyes, peering at his watch in a near-sighted squint. ‘I’m going to grab a coffee before we get started. Why don’t you have a read-through? I’ll be back in five. If you can start at the top of Act Three, scene two.’
That sounded like an excellent idea. She waited until Andrew left and then crept up the stairs to the big, white, empty stage. Although she faced row upon row of unoccupied seats, the empty auditorium felt haunted by previous audiences and the actors who’d stood on this stage. The air shivered with an indefinable atmosphere of hope, expectation and mystery that prickled along her skin.
Folding back the pages, she ran her finger down the lines to find her place in the script. It was the part where Ella knew she’d messed up but didn’t have the first clue how to make amends, so being Ella she went on the offensive.
Despite the theatre being empty, her first line came out wobbly and high-pitched.
‘It’s just a shoe.’ Her voice shook and tried the line again, taking in a careful breath, focusing on the character she’d created. She knew her inside out.
This time she spoke in a much more strident, more Ella-like, tone, ‘Not a happy-ever-after. There is no happy-ever-after, except in fairy tales,’ she faltered. The meaning of the words hitting home, hard. She tightened her grip on the script and threw back her head. Ella didn’t let herself be derailed by emotion. ‘We’re running a business here. A successful corporation. We don’t do happy-ever-afters.’
‘What if we did?’
Carrie dropped her script, whirling around at the deep voice that came from the wings.
Her next words dried in her throat as Richard walked towards her from the shadowed edge of the stage.
Dizziness swept over her and she couldn’t, for the life of her, remember the next line, couldn’t even remember her own name. The air gushed out of her lungs in one stranded-goldfish gasp.
‘What if there was a happy-ever-after for us, Carrie?’ The tender caress in his voice sucker-punched straight into her diaphragm.
‘That’s not the right line,’ she whispered, hardly daring to breathe, drinking in the sight of him. Everything switched to red alert, her nerve endings radiating static and tingling electricity running like wildfire over her skin.
To her relief, he kept walking because she couldn’t trust herself to move a limb without collapsing in a boneless heap.
‘What is the right line?’ he asked gently, as he came to stand in front of her, those mesmerising blue eyes focused on her with diamond-bright intensity that made her heart catch in her throat. She sighed, her eyes shimmering with tears and an overwhelming desire to tell him everything in her heart.
‘I’ve never loved anyone the way that I loved you.’ She repeated back the words he’d used that night on the boat. Words she’d held fast to, an anchor of hope. Saying them out loud scared the pants off her, making her wince as she remembered how carelessly she’d thrown them back at him that night. She owed him the truth. The whole truth this time.
‘When … when,’ she faltered. He took her hand and squeezed it. ‘When you went. When you left me at Heathrow, I … it hurt. I’d always sort of thought I was invincible. I wasn’t. Suddenly I couldn’t function. And I couldn’t tell anyone because it sounded rubbish. So, I hid behind my family. Much easier than risking you not loving me any more.’ Her voice broke. ‘But I can’t do it again. With you and me, it has to be all or nothing.’ Like an avalanche coming to rest after a downhill torrent, her words faded.
‘I’ll take all.’ He lifted a finger, tracing the tear that tracked down her face, before lowering his head and kissing it away. ‘I love you, Carrie Maddox, and there is no way on this earth that I’m giving you that blasted divorce.’
His mouth trailed down before capturing her lips in a passionate home-coming kiss. Her knees sagged as if the rest of her body had finally given permission to stop being strong and brave. She let herself be carried away by the kiss, led by the spiralling sensations of desire, touching and being touched. Nothing quite matched the utter bliss of being so wrapped up and lost in each other that nothing around them registered, until the unwelcome slam of a door in the background brought them swimming back to the surface.
‘Ah, Richard. You’re here.’ Andrew strode down the main aisle, completely unperturbed by their passionate clinch. ‘I’ve brought you coffee too. Didn’t know how you take it.’
‘Milk, no sugar … any more,’ muttered Carrie, wishing he’d bugger off.
Richard dropped a kiss on her head. ‘How the missus tells me, basically.’
He tugged her with him as he came off the stage to greet Andrew.
‘Thanks, mate.’
Carrie screwed up her forehead, shifting her glance between the two men. ‘Do you two know each other?’ She turned to Richard.
‘We do now,’ said Andrew. ‘Richard is going to be your Mr Charming. I didn’t realise, when he first approached me, that … he knew you, in the biblical sense or any other sense at all. But I wasn’t going to turn him down. Big name like his means we’ll have no trouble securing a backer.’
‘What? When?’ Carrie turned to Richard. ‘You said you wouldn’t do theatre.’
He shrugged, but something crossed his face. ‘I’m still not convinced, but like you said, maybe I need to spread my wings. Try something new. Besides, it gives me an excuse to base myself in London for the foreseeable future.’
‘When did you decide to do this?’ She didn’t know why she needed to know, she just did.
He picked up her hand and with his fingers circled her wedding-ring finger as he laid his cheek next to hers. His lips whispered against her cheek.
‘It was the night on the boat when I told you I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved you.’ He paused and kissed the corner of her mouth, before pulling back far enough, that she could see the solemn promise in his eyes. ‘I got the line wrong. What I should have said is, “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you and,”’ he laid a finger on her lips, ‘I never will.’
EPILOGUE
‘I still think I should have been a bridesmaid.’ Jade pouted as she flounced into the bedroom and threw herself down on the double bed.
‘But then you wouldn’t have got to wear DKNY,’ pointed out Carrie, pausing from pinning up her hair in a smart chignon to turn and give her niece a twinkly smile. She could tell the younger girl felt slightly unsettled. ‘And your mum wanted you to be with her.’
‘I guess.’ Jade smoothed down the pencil-straight skirt of the dress. ‘Arla has got brilliant taste.’ She stuck her feet out like a little girl, to admire her shoes. ‘These babies are banging.’ She got to her feet and in the mirror’s reflection, Carrie could see her pacing. Honestly, it was supposed to be the bride that was nervous.
‘And it was fun having my make-up done properly,’ Jade peered at Cassie. ‘Sally’s done a nice job on you too.’
‘Why thank you.’ Carrie examined her face. She was rather pleased with the results, although always found it ironic that looking this fresh and natural took the application of quite so many lotions and potions. Her face pos
itively glowed, as if she’d been lit from inside or perhaps it was just sheer happiness. This last year had been amazing and today was going to be even more special. She looked at her watch. In another half hour they’d be in the church. Butterflies fizzed in the bottom of her stomach. She didn’t want anything to go wrong today, but all the arrangements were in place and super-organised. Angela had done most of the work with her usual quiet, unflustered efficiency, although Cassie worried at her lip, her sister was allowed to be nervous now.
‘How’s your mum doing?’
‘Sally said another five minutes on the make-up.’
Cassie smiled. ‘Bang on time.’ With make-up done, all that was needed was the finishing touch of the dress. The ivory, heavy silk confection had been hanging up in the spare room for a week, ready to rustle and slither into place. Just thinking about it sent the butterflies rising and swirling in her stomach like a flock of starlings.
‘What time is the car coming?’ asked Jade, wheeling abruptly to pace across the room once more.
‘It’ll be here soon. Have you got everything?’
Jade patted the matching clutch that Arla had also supplied. ‘Phone, lippy. That’s all I need.’
‘And is your phone switched off.’
Jade rolled her eyes. ‘Not yet.’
‘Just make sure it is before you get inside the church.’
‘Yes, Auntie Cassie. I’ll just go see Mum. See if she’s ready yet.’
The three of them descended the stairs in solemn silence, broken only by the swish of the dress as it whispered down each tread. Through the open front door, Cassie could see the chauffeur-driven limousine, with the driver holding open the rear door. A brief smile flitted across her face and she nodded towards the car. ‘Just like St Tropez again.’
Angela laughed, the sound bubbling out like effervescent champagne, her face radiant. ‘How things have changed since then! Who’d have guessed? We’ve been blessed.’ She paused and gathered Cassie and Jade to her. The three of them stood in a group hug for a minute and Cassie took a deep breath and swallowed hard. She didn’t want tears to spoil her or Angela’s perfect make-up.
