by Zoe Cook
‘I don’t want a fucking drink,’ Lucy stood up, ‘I want to work somewhere where this shit doesn’t happen.’ She walked back into the party, slipping though groups of drunk staff and found Helen still at the main bar.
‘Lawrence,’ Lucy tapped him on the shoulder and he spun around with a huge grin on his face towards her, his nose stud glinting in the disco lights. ‘Juicy Lucy!’ he beamed and put an arm around her – he had clearly been making the most of the champagne top-ups. Emma shot Lucy a puzzled look, a nervous smile on her face. A mixture, Lucy imagined, of being impressed by her rapport with the celebrity, and jealousy that she was getting his attention. Then Lucy saw Emma spot Helen standing behind her before her face dropped to a thunderous look of disbelief.
‘This is my colleague,’ Lucy used her spare arm to pull Helen into the circle next to Lawrence. ‘She’s a massive fan, a ‘Teamer’, no less, and she’d love a photo,’ Lucy continued, pulling her iPhone from her pocket, waiting for Helen to speak. Lawrence took his arm off Lucy’s shoulder and turned to his super-fan. Helen was still looking at the floor and was now bright red and sweating slightly under the lights, her heavy black eye make-up smudged under her lower eyelashes.
‘Absolute pleasure to meet you, um–’
‘– Helen,’ she finally spoke in a tremble, ‘I’m Helen.’
‘Well, the pleasure is all mine, Helen,’ Lawrence took her hand and kissed it. Helen looked as though she might faint.
‘Right, let’s get that picture,’ Lucy stood back and Helen and Lawrence looked at her iPhone as she counted down and hit the button.
‘Beautiful, a keeper!’ she exclaimed, as Lawrence removed his arm from Helen and promptly turned back to the group, duty done. Lucy purposefully avoided Emma’s gaze, which she could feel burning into her skin, and walked away, heart thumping, with a giddy Helen.
Upstairs at her desk Lucy sat in her chair, her heart still pounding and her throat dry with realisation. She looked at her things on her desk and tried to work out how big a box she’d need for all her stuff. She couldn’t allow herself to think about what she’d just done, how she had defied and undermined Emma. She knew her career at Spectrum was over. Tears ran down her cheeks as she opened drawers and removed notebooks, make-up, flip-flops and piled them on her desk. What the hell have I done, she thought, and held her head in her hands, alone in the production office, as the party boomed and cheered through the floor beneath her.
13
Hideaway Bay, 2003
Lucy sat in her garden drinking a glass of her mum’s white wine; a crisp, cool chardonnay that helped immediately to take the edge off her anger. She glanced at the expanse of water on the horizon, glittering in the sunlight, and wondered if Tom had gone surfing after all. He probably had, she figured. Almost nothing could keep Tom out of the water, certainly not an argument with her. He’d surf right up until a minute or two before he was due at work in the café. It drove his mum crazy – though Sarah never really got angry with anyone and she would just tell Tom off affectionately. The issue of their future plans had been simmering for a while, really, Lucy knew that. She had always suspected he intended to stay in Cornwall for the rest of his life, but she’d never expected him to be so stupid as to write off any other prospects at all by not even getting his A levels. She tried to push the thought of it all from her mind as she felt her anger rise again, her heartbeat quickening. She took another mouthful of wine and reached for her phone to see the time. It was 3pm and she had an empty afternoon ahead of her now, with no Tom to entertain her. She wondered if she should call Nina, but remembered she was back together with Kristian, fully loved-up and therefore wholly unavailable to anyone else for at least the next few days – until their next argument. She put her phone down on the cushioned sun lounger and lay back, closing her eyes and feeling the sun on her eyelids. She wondered when her parents and Richie would be home. She remembered her mum telling her about having people over for dinner this evening and needing to cook. Lucy worried momentarily whether the wine she’d opened was meant for this evening’s guests, but sat up just enough to take another sip anyway.
The wine had calmed Lucy, as she’d hoped it would. A bead of sweat ran down her face from her hairline and she put her hand to her arm to check she wasn’t burning. The sun on her skin felt good, healing somehow. The campsite at the bottom of the valley was already starting to fill up, more and more colourful tents popping up each day. Lucy could see a corner of the site from the bottom of her garden. She remembered the nights the four of them had spent camping there, the fun they’d had lighting a fire and drinking cheap wine into the night. Her parents had never caught her out on those secret nights away, when she’d told them she was staying at Nina’s house. There was no way they’d have allowed her to stay with Tom in a tent when she was sixteen, and for good reason, as it turned out. Lucy remembered her argument with Tom all over again, but this time the wine fuzzed the anger and she felt something more like sadness. She picked up her phone to text him.
Sorry, shouldn’t have said some of what I said. I was upset. I love you x
A car pulled up in the driveway at the front of the house. Lucy heard the gravel crunch and the car engine switch off. Her parents must be back, she thought, hoping her mum wouldn’t try and rope her into helping with dinner preparations. She hated how her mum used her like a kitchen porter, only delegating the worst jobs and getting all shouty like a professional chef from TV cookery shows. She would make an excuse, she thought, say she had plans with Tom. In fact, she would go and see Tom. She’d apologise. She was more likely to convince him to stay on at college by being nice to him about it. She should have thought of that earlier. He was so stubborn once he’d made a decision; the more she fought it the more he’d stand firm. She was going to have to be cleverer than that.
‘Lucy?’ an unfamiliar female voice sounded from a few feet away, walking towards her.
Lucy sat up and turned around to see a man and woman in smartish office clothes walking towards her. She’d never seen them before.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Can I help you?’
She felt suddenly self-conscious in her shorts and bikini top and reached for her t-shirt to pull across her stomach.
‘Lucy, is your sister here with you? Claire?’ they asked, faces unsmiling. Lucy began to feel uneasy.
‘No, she’s in Thailand. Why?’ she asked, her own voice sounding strange.
‘We need to talk to you, Lucy,’ the woman said, standing close to her now, looking like she might sit down on the lounger next to her. ‘But we need to talk to you with an adult present.’
‘Well my parents aren’t home,’ Lucy explained. ‘They’ll be back any minute, I guess, but I haven’t heard from them.’
The woman glanced across at the man next to her, with an expression Lucy couldn’t place.
‘What is it?’ Lucy said. ‘I’m sixteen. What is it? You’re scaring me now.’
The woman sat on the lounger next to Lucy and up close Lucy realised she was younger than she’d first thought. She could only be a few years older than Claire. Lucy studied her as she tucked a chunk of her short blonde crop behind her ear. Then the man, too, sat down awkwardly on the lounger.
‘I’m Geraldine Slade,’ the lady said, quietly but firmly, ‘I’m a police officer and – would you like to go inside, somewhere a little more private?’
‘This is private,’ Lucy said, confused; their garden was huge, walled and not overlooked from any angle. What an odd thing to say, she thought.
‘Your parents and your brother were sailing today, from Newquay,’
‘I know,’ Lucy said, as her mind raced. She felt suddenly that she might be sick.
‘We don’t know exactly what happened yet but there was an accident, Lucy, I’m so sorry – ‘
‘What?’ Lucy’s voice shook, fear creeping through her body. ‘What are you saying to me?’
‘It was a very serious accident, Lucy. They’re in the hospi
tal now; they’re doing everything they can for them.’
‘What the fuck are you saying to me?’ Lucy said, standing, her body shaking. This was the craziest, sickest thing anyone had ever done to her. She had no idea what was going on.
‘It’s a lot to take in,’ Geraldine said calmly, ‘ And you need someone with you. Is there someone we can call? An adult?’
Lucy couldn’t think. Everything was failing her; she thought she might pass out.
‘My parents, my brother?’ she said, slowly. ‘Are they going to be okay?’ The words sounded ridiculous. Of course they would be okay. There was no other option. The whole scene felt like an evil joke.
‘I’m so very sorry. We’ll know more at the hospital,’ the man replied. ‘We’re here to help you in whatever way we can. But the first thing you need to do is call someone who can come and be with you here; someone you trust.’
‘I need to speak to Claire,’ Lucy said, numb, the words hollow in her mouth.
‘We can arrange that,’ Geraldine said, softly. ‘Have a think about who I can call for you now, to come over here and travel to the hospital with you, or take you somewhere else – whatever you want.’
Lucy scanned through her brain for an appropriate response and found nothing. There was nothing in her that could cope with this. She couldn’t even process it. The words kept repeating over and over and over. In the pit of her stomach a sense of doom settled; a fear that she was never, ever, going to be okay ever again. Nothing could ever be alright if something happened to her family. They just needed to come home, that’s all that could happen. She just needed her parents and Richie to come home, like normal, and she’d be so grateful and it would all be okay. How could an afternoon so beautiful become such a nightmare?
She felt a hand on her arm and the reality crushed her all over again; her legs folded and she collapsed back onto the lounger.
‘Call Tom’s mum,’ Lucy said, tears pouring from her eyes, her body stone-cold in the scorching heat, her heart threatening to stop beating all together. She just needed to get to the hospital and find out how they were going to make this all better.
‘Call Sarah.’
14
London, 2010
Lucy looked around at the production office, which was a total mess. Clothes, make-up, and hair-straighteners as far as the eye could see – piled on top of papers, folders and keyboards. There were half-drunk glasses of champagne littering the desks and Lucy picked up the one nearest to her and downed the flat bubbles. She heard footsteps on the staircase and a saw a flash of black hair through the small pane of glass on the door. The door flew open, crashing into the wall behind with a terrible noise, even over the music from the party below.
Emma’s face was expressionless and somehow more frightening than if she had been visibly angry. Lucy felt herself freeze and for a moment she thought she might wet herself. Emma strode towards her, stopping a few feet in front of her with a smile that didn’t meet her eyes. Lucy didn’t know what to say and she mumbled something incoherent before Emma raised a hand to her mouth in a ‘shhh’ gesture, dropping her smile. She pointed to Lucy’s desk and took another step towards her.
‘Take your things, and leave. Now!’ she snarled at Lucy. ‘You silly, silly little girl.’
Lucy watched her turn and walk away, still glued to the spot. Her legs wobbled slightly as the door closed again and Emma disappeared down the stairs. She took a heaving breath in and tried to compose herself. She pressed her hands into her eyes; she refused to cry here. There was a large woven shopping bag in her bottom drawer, from some launch she’d been to with Warren. ‘Dream It, Live It,’ the slogan on the side read. Lucy couldn’t remember what the product or film, or whatever, had even been. She began putting the few personal things she kept at work into the bag. It wasn’t like in films, she noticed. It didn’t feel like the time for ceremony and she didn’t have the kind of things that you’d pause and look at meaningfully, remembering good times or hard times – or whatever. She essentially had a filing cabinet full of pharmaceuticals to her name. She grabbed handful after handful of pill packets, deodorants, blister plasters, eye drops, and dried-up eyeliners and mascaras. There were lanyards that she’d been given at events, VIP access passes for concerts and festivals and photo-booth pictures of her and various Spectrum colleagues incredibly drunk at different parties.
She took the fire escape exit out to the car park, bypassing the party. She could hear Emma on the microphone addressing the crowd, people cheering her as if they adored her. The same people who, Lucy knew, in fact despised and feared her. But maybe it was more complicated than that, she thought, as she walked across the yard towards the main road. Maybe if she had the intelligence not to see everything in black and white, in good and bad and right and wrong, maybe then she wouldn’t have just lost the job she’d worked so hard for. Emma was a bitch, that was certain, but she employed all these people, she was successful and she could be kind when she wanted to be, when it suited her. Had Lucy just thrown away a career because she didn’t like her boss? Didn’t that just make her the biggest idiot of them all?
On the Tube she tried to fight thoughts of what her life had become. She lived alone, had broken up with Scott, barely spoke to her sister and only seemed able to enjoy herself when she was almost totally out of it. She had singlehandedly lost herself her job tonight and she really didn’t know what she had to wake up for tomorrow. She thought of Tom, and Nina and Kristian. Wondered what they were doing. Tom was probably drinking a beer and watching the sea, looking at the stars, like he always used to. ‘Just magical, isn’t it?’ He always used to say at the sight of a glittering sky over the ocean. And she’d look at him, with his gaze fixed firmly up into the night, and study his beautiful, kind face in the moonlight, and think ‘yes, it is, Tom, it really is magical’.
Back at the flat, she flicked her lamp on and sat on the sofa, suddenly tired from the evening’s events. She looked at her phone; it was 10pm, probably not too late to call Nina.
‘Hello?’ Nina’s voice answered. ‘Don’t tell me it’s Lucy Templeton!’ she feigned surprise.
‘Hello,’ Lucy replied, ‘Don’t moan at me. I’m sorry, I should’ve called you back ages ago but –’
‘But you’ve been very, very busy being a London media daaaarling,’ Nina said.
‘I’ve been busy fucking everything up, actually,’ Lucy replied, smiling with the relief of talking to her oldest friend.
‘Well, you know what would make it all better…’ Nina said.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Lucy replied.
‘And you know I’m right. I’m generally always right,’ Nina said, seriously.
‘I don’t know if it’s a good idea,’ Lucy said, and she meant it. ‘I don’t know if coming back there, being around Tom – all the memories. I don’t know if that’s not just the worst thing I could do right now.’
Nina left a silence, forcing Lucy to continue.
‘I just feel right on the edge, Nin. I seriously don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve ruined everything up here and I’ve ruined myself, I think. I’m lost.’ She was crying now and cursed herself for being pathetic.
‘I think you do know what you need to do,’ Nina said warmly. ‘I think you need to stop running from everything, stop trying to escape it all and just come home. Let me and Kristian look after you for a while. Hell, let Tom look after you – who knows you better than him? Than us?’
Lucy couldn’t reply.
‘Lucy, what’s the worst that happens if you come down here for a few weeks, take a break from London, breathe a little, get some Cornish sun, have some beach time with your very wonderful best friend – ?’
Lucy laughed.
‘I mean it, Lucy. We’ll be there, Tom’s invited you. He wants you there. Did you know Claire called him too? Worried about you? It doesn’t sound great up there.’
The reminder of Claire’s massively cringeworthy call to her childhood
sweetheart made Lucy’s cheeks burn.
‘Okay, okay,’ Lucy replied, ‘I’ll need to sort things out here, the flat, my –’ she realised she didn’t actually have anything much to sort out at all. She’d wrecked most of it already.
‘Come home, Lucy-Lu,’ Nina said. ‘It might be exactly what you didn’t know you needed.’
15
The 13:06 departure to Penzance was boarding at Platform 4. Lucy had fifteen minutes until her train would pull out of Paddington and decided she had time to get a proper coffee for the journey. In Starbucks she ordered a tall skinny cappuccino and through the lightly steamed windows watched a group of young people with huge backpacks and festival gear laughing together as they headed for the platforms, and men in suits rushing past dawdling amateur travellers towards the Underground. Lucy sprinkled vanilla powder over the frothed milk in her warm cup and left the shop to head for her train.
Claire had paid for Lucy’s ticket and had booked her a first-class single. In her squishy beige leather window seat, Lucy took the magazines from her case before lifting it into the rack above her single table. She’d walked past packed carriages of families off on their holidays and had inwardly thanked Claire for the foresight and generosity of upgrading her to this quiet, cool compartment. She would text Claire later to thank her again and to let her know she was on her way. Claire had offered to drop Lucy at Paddington this afternoon but Lucy hadn’t wanted the fuss of a goodbye, the sense of ceremony of someone waving her off from London. She’d seen Claire last night instead, given her a set of keys and run through the things she might need to know about the flat. Anna, an old university friend of Tim’s, was moving in in a week’s time whilst on secondment to London from her Manchester office. The arrangement allowed Lucy to leave London for a while without having to move out of her flat. ‘Keeping your options open,’ Claire had said. It’s only a month, Lucy had told herself.
